The Benefits of Being a Megalomaniacal Father
by Inquisitor Halbread
Summary: A father decides to conquer the world for fun, profit and to keep his daughter safe (Evil Genius Inspiration)
1. Inception: 1,1

**Brockton Bay  
January 14, 2011  
**  
Danny Hebert Looked down at the prone form of his daughter, sleeping peacefully after the hell she had gone through. The Hospital room was mostly silent except for the steady beat of the EKG machine and Taylor's almost silent breaths. It has been two days since Taylor had been taken out of her own locker, a locker filled with utter filth with her having infected cuts all over her body. Danny had been simultaneously outraged and dead worried after he heard. He had been worried for his daughter Taylor, and he had been outraged at the three girls who had done it. Yes, Danny knew who had put his daughter in that locker and who turned said locker into a festering hellhole of biological waste. It had taken literally ten minutes of investigation on Danny's part to find out that three girls were responsible.

Sophia Hess, Madison Clements and Emma Barnes. It was still hard to believe that Taylor's childhood friend had such a face-heel turn, but the texts and emails that Danny's ramshackle worm program had retrieved painted a clear picture. A picture clearer than he would have liked. He had also found the journal... To say he was disgusted with the "Trio" was an understatement, to say the least. Taylor had been bullied for two years, and he hadn't known any of it. Taylor hadn't told him, she had kept everything from him and not let anything about what she was going through bother him.  
Danny felt slightly mad that she hadn't shared her trouble with him, but a lot more of him felt ashamed that she thought that she couldn't share her life with him, her own father.

Danny realized that he had been distant since Annette died, she had probably thought that he was so fragile that any of her problems would have caused him to collapse with worry because "he couldn't do anything".

Admittingly, Taylor didn't know of his underworld contacts so it wasn't so unreasonable...

It still saddened him and made him angrier with the perpetrators and himself. Each beep of the EKG hammered the fact that he had failed and made him want to rip it out and replace it with something more suitable to help his daughter. Maybe an Autodoc or a Biogenetic regenerator? Danny was sure he had one of those in storage somewhere.

But, he couldn't do anything like that for Taylor. That was way too obvious, there were too many people who would ask questions. If he still had minions, Danny would have got them to infiltrate a regeneration machine disguised as an EKG into the hospital and then bribe a hospital technician to replace the EKG in this room with the regenerator as the current one required "maintenance". Not many people in a hospital knew how the machines worked internally, so as long as Danny got the technicians to look the other way, and kept Panacea and any Tinkers out of the room, then Taylor would be fine in hours instead of days.

Danny didn't have minions anymore, however. Annette and him had agreed to give up that life when we had Taylor, their little girl didn't need to worry about evil schemes or convoluted revenge plots aimed at us and so we just retired. Lustrum had said goodbye to her best Henchwoman and I had given up my efforts to conquer the world. It had been bliss until three years ago.

Until someone murdered Annette.  
It had looked like a typical car crash, a tragic accident, but the signs were there if you knew what to look for. And Danny had seen a fair share of those in his youth.

Danny was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the door to the ward opening. Looking in that direction, Danny saw his old friend Alan Barnes who looked justifiably ragged. His suit was messy, shirt buttons were poorly done and the jacket was hanging awkwardly from his frame. His hair hadn't even looked like it had been brushed. When he spotted Danny, Alan seemed to relax, his shoulders slumping in relief. He approached Taylor's bed and Danny quickly.

"Thank god I've found you, Danny. I've been looking everywhere for you." He said, almost out of breath.  
"Well, I've been here. By my _daughter's hospital bed_ , Alan" Danny replied coldly.  
"Honestly, I had thought you had gone off to get revenge on the Clements girl. So, I looked in on the Union and they said you would be here and, more importantly, that you hadn't sent anyone to mail suspicious packages to people."

Danny was silent at that. It had crossed his mind to simply attack the girls who had done this to his daughter, but he had spent a lot of time controlling his anger and so he hadn't prematurely arranged any accidents or otherwise for the Clements girl or Miss Hess. It wouldn't have done to attract the PRT's attention by assassinating a Ward after all.

Alan grabbed a nearby chair and sat down next to his friend. "Look, Danny, I know you are in no mood to talk but I need to tell you something..."

Taking Danny's silence as a yes, Alan continued. "After you had sent those emails and texts to me, I confronted Emma." His voice had a note of worry in it. "After she was convinced there wouldn't be legal repercussions for what she did, she told me everything..." He trailed off. "... She was fucking proud, Dan." Alan whispered. "I have no idea what happened to her. As far as I knew she and Taylor were still best friends. Hell, she even thought they were still friends..."

"What?" Danny asked, shocked.  
"I know, she told me that she was helping Taylor stop being 'prey' and she was hoping Taylor was going to be a 'survivor'. Whatever that means." Alan scoffed with disgust. "Back in our day, this was cruel and unusual execution."

Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was starting to become clear. "Alan, I don't think your daughter got over the ABB thing." Danny quietly said.  
Alan was shocked, he had told Danny about the ambush but he didn't know how it related to this situation. "Dan, The therapist cleared her, said she was healthy."

Dan sighed, "People can break more ways than one, Alan. I don't need to tell you how messed up Parahumans are. Do I?"  
"I've listened to that speech many times, thank you," Alan said quickly. "I still don't understand..."  
Danny interrupted him, "Look at the majority of heroes, they can still function in society, they can appear completely normal in most situations but _every ,single, one, of them_ is broken" Danny lectured. "This simple view of survivor and prey sounds similar, doesn't it?"

Alan sat up straight as though he was shocked. "Sophia..." He breathed. The NDA he had signed briefly flashed through his mind, telling him that he had essentially broken it in two. Alan dismissed that thought. It wasn't like Danny didn't know who was who in the Protectorate, considering their amazingly thin covers and hilariously bad cyber security. Danny was a former evil genius after all.

"How did you do it, this time, Dan," Alan asked, a small part of him wanting to know. _Only_ a small part  
"Nigerian spam email." Danny simply stated.

"... Isn't Nigeria in the middle of a civil war?"  
"Exactly. But that isn't what is important." Danny continued, ignoring Alan's unspoken question. "I think your daughter latched on to Shadow Stalker ever since the ambush. It was likely a defensive mechanism to prevent her from having doubts about her self-worth after the incident. Her identity had been so broken by the traumatic experience that she bought into Sophia's twisted philosophy as it reinforced what was left."

Alan was stunned. The fact that Danny had figured this out after looking at a journal and a few messages made him feel pathetic as a father. Taylor was actively hiding the bullying from Danny because she felt he couldn't take it while Emma hadn't been hiding it that well at all. He had no idea what must be going through Danny's head, he was the one who used to want to rule the world to save it after all. He could only imagine how horrible it must be feeling, a man who had stumped the world's forces of Justice was deceived by his own daughter for good intentions. It made the contrast between Alan and Danny seem wider, and more evident that it had been his fault that this happened.

If he had only been a bit more observant, he could have noticed how broken his daughter really was and stop her from hurting a little girl who he considered his unofficial niece.

"What do you want to do, Dan?" Alan asked his friend, defeat entering his voice. Danny had a terrible temper. If he wanted to go legal with this, he would support him as a friend. If he wanted to go at this illegally...

Well, Alan hoped his daughter wasn't in the crosshairs of that.

"Get your daughter help, Alan. I've seen what happened, in the journal and the messages. She was broken, she needs to be fixed." Danny surprised Alan with his cool response.  
"Why? Don't you want revenge?" Alan asked, fear etching in his heart. It wasn't past Danny to arrange accidents for people who attempted to hurt his family and he desperately hoped that he wouldn't be planning that right now. It was interesting, being more scared by your best friend than the triumvirate.

Then again, since Danny had beaten two of the three members of the triumvirate, It wasn't so unreasonable.

"No Alan. I trust you to deal with this. You know your daughter best. As for Miss Clements, she was just a social tag-along. None of the correspondence between them the three say that Madison was anything more than a follower. A lieutenant if you will. Dealing with her in an extreme fashion would be useless." Danny then interlocked his fingers in front of his face into his typical 'plotting time pose'.  
Alan was slightly worried. Danny was falling into his old habits, the condition of his daughter must have been hitting him harder than Alan thought to have that little self-control.

Suddenly Danny smirked and clapped his hands. "Yes! A cake slime would be perfect!"  
Alan was shocked at Danny's sheer vindictiveness and slightly disgusted at the mental image he brought up. Back when he was still practising evil, Danny had wanted to make a signature 'mysterious package' that he could send to people who were enemies or just if they annoyed him. His first invention was the Pie bug, a beetle designed to look like a pie. It was meant to attack anyone who tried to eat it and so Danny decided to test it.  
Marquis had sent the beetle back all spiky and immobile, with a note that exoskeletons counted as bone and that Danny should try harder.

So Danny made the cake slime. An engineered organism that was the cross between a slime in fantasy and a cake. Originally the Cake slime was only supposed to taste disgusting, but then when a minion tried to eat it, it grew tentacles and proceeded to beat up and traumatise the poor man. From that day on, all the minions avoided cake in the base, especially the female minions as there were rumours that a few minions were leaving anime in places that the slimes frequent.

Alan hadn't needed to see enough hentai t know where that was going to go.

Danny was pleased with the success of the slime and subsequent healthier diets of his minions and sent a cake slime to Marquis to celebrate.  
Marquis had shown up in full armor at the base that night with a haunted look in his eyes. He then proceeded to practically launch the cake slime he was holding into the base and ran away like he had seen Behemoth.  
The slime mauled twelve minions before it was captured.

Danny had later made a non-lethal version, but it still made the disgustingly cute "Meep" when it saw people.  
In Alan's opinion, it was downright terrifying.

"Are you sure you want to go to those lengths, Danny? A cake slime can't be taken back..." Alan asked his friend worryingly.  
Danny turned to his friend and frowned. "Don't worry Alan. I still have a healthy population of cake slimes on hand."  
Alan raised his eyebrow. "And... Do you remember why that is?"

 _Jason Forlov walked through the corridors of the base of the Evil Organisation that he was a part of. Even though he was essentially a criminal, he had never been more satisfied with a job. His boss, Danny Hebert, was a fair and kind man even if he was evil. He cared about the people under him, even when he wasn't expected to. He also made all sorts of fantastic things and he wasn't even a parahuman! Tinker-tech broke down after a few uses or after a while but Danny's stuff had lasted years. Jason had even fired a death ray! The soldier who it belonged to told Jason that he maintained the death ray every day and if something really went wrong, then he could always just take it to the technicians to fix. It was so nice to see simple Mad Science in a world of Science Magic Bullshit._

 _Jason tugged his yellow jumpsuit so that it fit better as he turned around the corner and found a peculiar sight.  
Someone had dropped some cake on the floor._

 _Something didn't feel right with this situation. The cake looked almost pristine, as though someone had put it down carefully. It was a slice of cake instead of a full one, meaning it thankfully wasn't a slime.  
It was just sitting there, the perfect image of the perfect cake. It didn't sit right with him._

 _"Hey dude, what's up?" another minion, Randy, said as he turned the corner. Jason grabbed his shoulder before he passed him. "Wait..." he hissed. He had realised what was wrong..._

 _Where were the crumbs?_

 _Horror filled his features as Jason stared at the monstrous slice of cake._

 _"MEEP." The cake slice said._

 _The slice began to shift and bulge, growing in mass until it reformed as a full cake.  
"MEEP."  
Jason spun around and he saw more, shifting slices of cake, growing into full cakes. One full cake divided itself into eight pieces and each piece oozed away, breaking one's perception of cakes forever.  
"THEY"RE REPRODUCING!" Jason shouted. He quickly turned around and began sprinting, dragging Randy with him.  
The halls were filled with the screams of two grown men as the cakes sprouted long tentacles and followed swiftly, hot on the minions' heels while repeating a cute "MEEP" the whole way.  
_  
"I don't see your point," Danny said, befuddled.  
Alan blanched. This is the benchmark of punishment for hurting his daughter. Alan knew that Danny was aware of the sheer destructive effect of the Cake slimes and he still considered it the least severe punishment.  
 _There's the internal Evil Genius that Danny was hiding._ Alan thought.  
"Don't you think that's a bit harsh?" Alan tried again.  
Danny stared blankly at him. "They hurt my Little Owl, Alan. Do you really want me to think it through more?"

Alan gave it some thought. The cake slime was not actually the _worst thing_ that Danny could do and any more thought on the matter might make Danny think that even that wasn't enough.  
"Fine..." Alan sighed, "...Give me one as well."  
 _  
Emma needs severe therapy anyway... Might as well use it as a good motivator to complete the therapy._

"What about Sophia?" Alan asked.  
"The Ward?"Alan nodded. "I'll think of something to do with her. It's going to be way worse than a cake slime but we both know the Protectorate and PRT don't play fair when it comes to their capes and agents."  
Alan nodded. It was true, while it was expected for evil minions to resort to lethal force if necessary, it had disgusted Alan as a lawyer to see the PRT officers and Protectorate capes often willing to kill and ask questions never when it came to Danny's organisation. They would always go non-lethal against the gang capes but wouldn't hold their people responsible for the minions they killed. To be honest, Minions were expendable and they knew it but they were still people... Most of the time. The Allfather clones didn't count.

Alan stood up and stretched. He looked down at his friend. "Danny, Kurt, and Lacey asked me to invite you out drinking tonight. Considering the circumstances, I think you need to unwind before you start improving the EKG machines. Don't worry about Taylor. This is a perfectly secure hospital and I'll call Daniel to send some guys to watch over the place."

Danny, lost in thought, looked back to his comatose daughter. It was true that the hospital was safe and he trusted Daniel enough that there might be a veritable army of dockworkers here if there is trouble.

Danny also knew that he was on the breaking point. Danny had an explosive temper but it hadn't always been that way, it used to burn _cold_. It was only since he had to give up the leads on Annette's murder to take care of his only daughter when the temper started becoming explosive. He wasn't used to that feeling so helpless when it came to his family and Taylor pulling away had amplified that feeling. That feeling turned his patient temper into one that lashed out, both were just as intense but they just manifested differently. There were times when Danny's anger would reach a point when it would go cold and now was one of those times.

Unfortunately, Danny knew that meant that he was unpredictable and irritable.  
 _Maybe cooling off would be the best thing for Taylor, before I do something I regret._ Danny thought to himself.

During his internal debate, Alan had been patiently waiting for Danny's answer.

Danny stood up and stretched. He had sat there watching over Taylor for hours now.  
"You know, I think I'll come."

Alan smiled and patted Danny on the back. "Good man, Come on."

As they walked out of the hospital room, Danny had a single thought.  
 _No one is hurting my little girl again. Even if I have to come out of retirement to do it._

AN: Another story I am moving across.

As you can see, My inspiration does weird things.

Like the others there is no set update time for this.

Enjoy the Writing.


	2. Inception: 1,2

Danny shivered as he entered his favorite bar, The Final Word. The January weather was especially cold in Brockton Bay and the change in temperature was jarring to him as he entered the warm bar with Alan. It was a cosy place, the slightly small spaces caused a nice and familiar atmosphere, promoting casual discussion and, in Danny's case, relaxed plotting in the past.

Other people would have said that the authentic wooden tables, bar, and the wooden floor gave this place an old feeling and it was slightly claustrophobic.

Danny thought those people were young whipper-snappers and personal space addicts respectively.

Danny and Alan looked around the bar for Kurt and Lacey. As Danny's eyes passed over Lewis, the owner and bartender of The Final Word, he gave the heavy set, balding blond haired and blue eyed man a nod. Lewis was a former minion and was a dependable and honest person but his dedication was a bit intense. After Danny and his friends made their preference of his bar, Lewis had offered them free drinks for life which they politely declined. He had then offered them a large discount for anything they might buy at his bar, Kurt had mentioned that it would look a bit suspicious to have one group of random people paying significantly less than anyone else.

He had then offered them a free beer, which they gladly took him up on.  
He had also offered them the services of his first-born in their next nefarious plot. Danny had thought about it for a second before rejecting the service of a twelve-year-old.

Even an Evil Genius needed standards.

It was then that Danny spotted Kurt in one of the booths at the back. Getting Alan's attention, they both made their way to the booth, where Kurt saw their approach and stood up to greet them.

"Danny! Alan! Good to see you!" Kurt said, arms open wide in greeting.  
"Hey, Kurt. How are you doing?" Danny replied to his longtime friend, shaking his hand in greeting.

Kurt grinned at Danny. "You know, same old same old. Even The Dockworker's Union needs an accountant." Kurt then turned to Alan. "So you managed to get Danny out of the hospital. Was he almost about to upgrade all of their equipment?" Kurt said with amusement as he shook Alan's hand.  
"I feared for the safety of our city health care if Danny didn't leave the hospital soon," Alan said smugly, a big smile on his face as he did so.

Danny rolled his eyes. They wouldn't just let the zombie thing drop, would they?

"If they had decided to actually _read_ the instructions to the regenerators I had given them, then their deceased patients wouldn't have resurrected like that," Danny said, exasperated at defending his attempt to improve hospitals once again.

Alan leaned toward Kurt in a conspiratorial manner.  
"You see what I mean?" Alan stage-whispered.  
Kurt nodded sagely, eyes closed. "You have done the right thing."

Danny rolled his eyes, ignoring his friends' jabs at his attempt to improve Brockton Bay General Hospital.

Danny hadn't expected zombies to be a potential complication, but thanks to Kurt, Lacey, Marquis, Annette, Himself and some enthusiastic med students, the zombies had been dealt with before the incident had even made the news. World domination was nigh impossible in a zombie apocalypse after all, and accidentally causing such an apocalypse wasn't a good thing to put on your evil resume.

 _They'll eventually see that my help doesn't cause undead apocalypses,_ Danny thought to himself, _I'll show them all!_  
Danny's mental train screeched to a stop as he registered the last, definitely megalomaniacal, thought passed through his mind. _I haven't thought that way in a long time..._  
Danny stomped down on that thought. Yes, he considered using his experience as a way to protect Taylor but that was just a bit too far for the life he wanted Taylor to lead.

"Where is Lacey?" Danny asked, hoping no one saw his slip of self-control. Kurt shrugged. "She needed to go to the bathroom. She had just left before you guys arrived. Come let's sit, unwind with a couple of beers."

As Danny and Alan voiced their agreement and followed, Danny hoped that tonight could help him unwind.

-  
Tonight had been one of the most fun nights Danny had enjoyed in recent memory.

It was a night of simple talking and light drinking, a far cry from what he had been dealing with on a daily basis. Lacey had returned from the bathroom soon after they had sat down and had injected her almost trademark energy into the conversation the moment she had arrived. She had been wearing a nice black T-shirt with a pair of jeans that contrasted with Kurt's white T-shirt and black chinos. Their shoes had carried over the contrast further between Kurt's white sneakers and Lacey's leather knee-high boots. They had always enjoyed dressing against each other even before they were married. During the night, Danny had watched the antics that the married couple got up to during their playful talk, and even though it brought up painful memories of Annette, he found himself enjoying their antics. It was hard to watch them but he was happy that Kurt and Lacey were so happy together.

He was forced to admit that he had thrown himself into his work to avoid thinking about Annette and had, as a consequence, probably made his and his daughter's life miserable with his distance.  
Danny could make hundreds of excuses for that. That he wasn't used to being so helpless . He would have thrown himself into killing his wife's killers if he could have. That he wasn't built to be a salary worker.  
At the end of the day, those were just words and he could see that's not what a father should have done. He should have comforted Taylor, who hadn't known that her mother was murdered and who didn't even know who her parents actually were.  
And it scared him that the only reason he could see this was that he had been slipping away from Danny Hebert, Dockworker spokesman, into Danny Hebert, Evil Genius.

So Danny reacted how any person should in this situation. He drank more.

At this point Danny had his head lying on the table, trying to somehow feel the alcohol move through his system, hopefully numbing the pain of failing his daughter so badly. But even through the pain, tonight was oddly one of the few nights that he had given a genuine smile.

Danny was brought out of musing by Kurt's voice.  
"Hey, You remember Annette's old job?" Kurt asked everyone, a slight melancholy in his voice.  
Everyone nodded at that.  
"If I remember correctly, she was Lustrum's top Lieutenant. She used to run around in that black and yellow spandex catsuit right? She had... Two katanas?" Alan replied, a thoughtful expression on his face.  
Lacey's face lit up as she pushed her straight, brown hair behind her shoulder.  
"Yeah, she wore that motorcycle helmet thing and went by 'Ronin'." Lacey's smile widened. "She cut through so many minions with that stoic act she played that I thought she was some sort of feminine robot when I tried to impersonate her. I was so surprised when she started ranting about historical accuracy and the katana's importance in literature after I had thought they were long swords."

That memory brought a smile to everyone's face. It had happened when Annette had led Lustrum's forces through the base and into one of the large laboratories of the base where the Evil Organisation had gathered to stop them. Kurt had been dueling her, teleporting and dodging past expert slashes of those Katanas while attempting to use his superhuman strength and speed to land a hit on her. Then Lacey had turned up in her attempt to impersonate 'Ronin'. To say that Annette was not impressed was an understatement. She had started yelling at Lacey, the first time she had spoken in her Ronin persona, about how her overly robotic movements destroyed the fluidity of the combat style and how the style didn't even work if Katanas, weren't used.  
The rant had caused the fighting around them to stop almost completely, as radical feminists and minions paused in their equal-opportunity fight to stare at the _stoic warrior_ ranting in a heated voice about the importance of literature in her persona.

Danny, across the room protecting one of his more _explosive_ inventions from feminists, had paused from his lobbing of a cake slime from the sheer passion if the rant, the slime giving a sad _meep_ at its lack of being airborne. Eventually, everyone had gathered around the oblivious young woman. Lustrum's group members either were looking around in an embarrassed fashion or had gone glassy-eyed from the sheer detail that Annette had gone into. The minions had fared better, the scientifically inclined minions were taking notes while the others were politely nodding along at appropriate times, having learnt what to do in such a situation from Danny's own rants. Lustrum, who had arrived slightly late, had leaned against a wall with her head in her hands while muttering.

The rant had gone on for several hours, where the minions had got tired of standing and those who had excuses to leave, did so as soon as they could. Apparently running a secret underground base was preferable to a history lecture. Kurt had just stood there in his signature leather jacket, boots, pants, and gloves. He was also wearing his sunglasses with his brown hair slicked back. He had paid attention for a while, but eventually went to go get everyone pizza. Lacey was enraptured, one of the scientists had lent her a notepad and she was scribbling on it almost feverishly, having already removed her version of Annette's helmet. Metal Fist had adopted a cross-legged position, his cybernetic body distinct from the other spectators, and was answering questions from the martial artists who sat around him, all paying attention to Annette's lecture. Lustrum and her forces were just milling around, looking around at the lab equipment that hadn't been destroyed in the short fight, chatting amongst themselves. Alan had even walked in, looking for Danny to discuss some of the more... _legal_ operations that The Organisation was involved in. He had looked at the impromptu debate and shook his head and left, muttering about tuition costs for minions as he left.

They had given the impression that they've heard this speech before... Often.

Danny, on his part, had been listening intently to Annette's speech but he couldn't deny that he hadn't found it a bit awkward. Firstly, because he had been attracted to Ronin's intelligence.  
Secondly, because he had recognised that voice as belonging to the cute girl who lived down the hall in his university dormitory.

Danny had kept silent and listened to the lecture... Until she had gotten into the metallurgy of the different blades...  
She had just been... wrong. On so many levels.  
On any other circumstance, Danny would have let her ignorance continue due to her being a hostile intruder.  
But it was the Laboratory. You weren't allowed to be _that_ wrong here.  
And so Danny had joined the debate.

It had gotten heated almost immediately, neither side would back down, neither side would give a point.  
And neither side got the upper hand.

It had been some of the best fun he ever had.

"It was surprising that she wasn't a parahuman, hey? I was almost sure that she was after that day." Lacey continued, breaking Danny out of his reminiscing.

Danny lifted his head off of the table and looked toward Lacey, "It's not that easy to tell who has the weird space squids connected to them. You used to be a parahuman, you know how hard it is to actually tell."  
"Don't I know it." Lacey agreed with a small frown on her face. " It wasn't fun at all, I don't miss it one bit."

Lacey had been the only parahuman that Danny had ever employed. Back when they had first met, she had been a depressed and shy college student, a completely opposite person from who she was now. She didn't really have a presence in the room if she wasn't using her power, which was oddly appropriate for what her power did. Lacey's power was technically classified as a Thinker ability, she could literally start thinking like any person she knew. Her mannerisms, her speech, and even her opinions changed to the person she was imitating. She essentially became a Lacey shaped clone of whoever she chose. It was useful in the right situations, but it wasn't exactly a very powerful power. The most she had used it for before she had found Danny was to con people out of their money or liking her.

In fact, when she had approached Danny for a job, she had shyly said that it was because when she had tried to impersonate him, she had immediately felt the urge to laugh maniacally and try to take over the world. She had also known that Danny wouldn't have turned her away...

She wasn't wrong.

With Danny's talent at being an evil genius, Lacey's power increased its potency over a hundred fold. With advanced disguise technology and techniques, she had become one of the best infiltrators in the world, capable of acting, sounding and being anyone. Master-Stranger Protocols didn't do much when no one could tell the difference between the imposter and the real thing. Her performance as Alexandria was still being watched and laughed at today.

She was a valuable member of the organisation and the many new friends she had made had helped her come out of her shell. She had even started socialising on her own accord. However, no matter how much she opened up, she was still distant from everyone else and even was confrontational with some of the minions.  
Her shy and sometimes prickly behavior had seemed to simply be who she was...  
Until she had lost her powers.

It had been a fight with the Empire 88 where Lacey had received shrapnel into her brain. Thanks to the Evil Organisation's doctors and Danny's quick thinking, Lacey survived with no brain damage. Except for her Corona Gemma.

When she had awoken, she had absolutely no idea who she was and was changing personalities constantly. Even Lacey had admitted afterward that, her jumping around and proclaiming to be a shapeshifted Kurt was hilarious, but it had been deadly serious at the time. After investigating the problem and realising that it was unfixable, Danny decided to simply cut her off from her power.

And just like that, Lacey's personality had changed completely. She was suddenly outgoing and friendly. She had said that it was the first time she had truly felt like herself in recent memory, her power apparently suppressing her identity in order to better act like other people.

Several unfortunate minions had questioned whether she was still the best infiltrator...  
After several untraceable pranks, several surprise love triangles and one soaking wet minion later, the questions stopped.

Lacey had still remained the best, even without her powers. It just required a bit more research on her part.

If someone was to ask Lacey about being a parahuman, she would reply "Not even once."

"Wait," Alan suddenly said, bringing Danny's mind back to the bar. "What do you say about a squid?"  
Kurt's eyes widened while Lacey sent a questioning look towards Danny. Danny himself kept a blank look as he wondered about why Alan was asking about the source of Parahumans.  
"Oh, I didn't tell you two. Did I." Danny asked of them.  
"About what?" asked Lacey, quizzically.  
"About the source of all Parahuman powers of course."

The silence was deafening.  
"What? When I was fixing Lacey's power problem, I saw there was some dimensional interference so I took a look. What I found was some continent-sized squid creature. I assume that it was the thing that gave you your powers but I didn't know, so I just closed the connection." Danny said nonchalantly as he took another sip of the beer he was nursing.  
As Kurt sweat nervously and Lacey's face filled with horror, Alan let out an exasperated sigh and turned toward Danny.  
"Danny, that was over sixteen years ago..." Alan said calmly.

"It's not likely that important. All I could think it was doing..."

"You didn't tell me for sixteen years!" Lacey interrupted Danny. "FOR SIXTEEN YEARS, YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT CTHULU WAS LITERALLY IN MY BRAIN! OH GOD!"  
Lacey put her hand over her mouth as she retched internally. She seemed to have a shade of green to her face as she got up and sprinted to the bathroom.

The table was silent until Danny turned towards Kurt. "I thought it wasn't that important," Danny said, slightly morose for causing physical and possibly mental illness to a close friend.

"You do this all the time. Remember when you gave me the super serum?" Kurt replied, annoyance clear on his features.

Danny remembered.

 _Kurt grimaced as he drank the serum. It's awful taste combined with the smell of the cramped dorm room he shared with his genius friend, Danny Hebert, made it especially unappealing.  
Finished drinking, he placed the bottle on the bed and looked at the desk where Danny was studying for an upcoming Physics test.  
"I'm done," Kurt called out.  
"That's good. Your cancer should be cured and possibly have superpowers after it has done its work."  
"Yes!"  
"Now the serum just has to rewrite your genetic code. It might be intensely painful"  
"WhaHUURK"_

Danny didn't see Kurt's point.

"I had assumed you knew what would happen. I gave you everything you needed to know, I didn't think you needed to be told that rewriting your genetic code would be painful." Danny said, indignantly.  
"Dan... You gave me an eight hundred page article, written by you."  
"See? You had everything you needed."  
"Dan, I didn't read any of it," Kurt replied, his tone filled with disbelief. "I was a college student. I barely read my textbook for goodness sake."

Danny shrugged his shoulders and hummed noncommittedly. Kurt let the matter drop. It was over twenty years ago and Danny was just like this when he got into "Evil Science."  
Besides, it's not like Kurt didn't enjoy his powers.

Just then, Lacey collapsed into her seat, having returned from the bathroom. She still looked a little green. "I am never getting that image out of my head." Lacey sighed out.  
At that, Danny laughed and Kurt's frame started shaking in minuscule amounts as he tried to suppress his laughter.  
"What?" Lacey asked.  
Both men burst out laughing while Alan shook his head in mock disapproval.  
"Haha. You see it's funny because there was a squid in your mind, and you said you'll never get it out of your mind!" Kurt struggled to speak through his laughter.

Lacey stared at Kurt, her expression deadpan.  
"You aren't having sex tonight," Lacey stated calmly and turned away from him.  
Kurt sobered up immediately while Danny laughed harder. Even Alan had a chuckle at that.

It was a minute until everyone had calmed down. "Why did we ever stop being together?" Alan asked, amusement and longing tinging his voice.  
"Annette and I wanted Taylor to have a normal life... Fat load of good that did us..." Danny said.  
Kurt chimed in, "She could have still had one you know, Lots of supervillains have kids."  
Danny rolled his eyes, "Having a father and two mothers isn't normal, Kurt."  
"What's this about two mothers?" Alan asked, confusion evident in his features.

Danny's head landed on the table as he groaned in embarrassment and Lacey giggled.  
"Lustrum threatened to marry Danny if he actually managed to conquer the world after he married Annette," Kurt said smugly.  
At this Lacey shifted excitedly in her seat, "Oh, I remember exactly what she said..." she said with a large grin.

Danny looked up at her from his head-table position.  
"How?" He asked.  
Lacey gave him a wink.  
Danny groaned again.  
 _For all I know, she was probably Kurt at the time._ Danny thought to himself.

Lacey cleared her throat and when she spoke, the voice and southern accent of Lustrum came out of her mouth. " _If you think you can simply steal my Lieutenant from me and then steal the world, mister. Then I'm gonna bully yeh into polygamy."_

Alan laughed out loud.

Danny groaned again. Alan wasn't going to let this go.

-  
The night went on until Kurt got a serious look on his face.

"Danny... This is the happiest we've seen you since Annette died."  
Danny took a quick glance toward Alan and Lacey, noticing similar looks.  
"Look, Danny, the last few years have been rough, for you especially. We've noticed the spiral you've been falling down, and you don't need that. Taylor doesn't need that."

The table remained silent as Kurt took a long breath. Danny wanted to see where this was going.  
"You weren't meant to live a normal life," Kurt continued. "You only even feel this good because you started plotting again. Yes, Alan told us about the bullying and texted us about the slimes."  
Danny looked towards Alan, who looked at the ceiling innocently. Danny couldn't deny that Kurt was right. Any other day, Danny would have argued that his life was fine and that he was happy with it.  
But after Taylor... And after thinking about how to get revenge...

He had never felt as himself as he did in years.

"What Kurt is getting at, is that we have an important question to ask you." Lacy continued where Kurt left off.

"Do you want to conquer the world?" Alan finished.  
"What?"  
"The world is in a bad place, Dan," Kurt said, "This isn't the time we lived in. No parahuman is really following their unwritten rules before and somehow the PRT had even managed to become worse at their job. Africa is literally on fire and Europe suddenly has Nazis again."

"The world is really messed up." Lacey continued in a small voice. "Back then, You had known that the world was going wrong and you wanted to take it for yourself. So that you could steer it in the right direction. The new Endbringers, the gangs, everything is just collapsing in on itself and it's only getting worse. Even Hero died to those psychopaths!" Lacey now looked directly at Danny, determination in her eyes. Hero had been a fun adversary, he hadn't taken everything as seriously as his colleagues and was the one enemy who had taken the most responsibility of how he acted. It had hurt Lacey to lose a good frenemy, even if they had been retired by then."We almost won it all last time, and I can't help if wonder if so many people would have died If we didn't quit."

"Lacey..." Kurt tried to comfort his wife, hugging her tightly.  
"I know I shouldn't feel this way. That it's too many what-ifs." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I don't feel we should do nothing anymore... We don't feel that. I know you enjoyed it all, it was your passion to take over the world."

Kurt turned towards Danny, "Even if you don't feel that you'd be giving Taylor the normal life she wants. She isn't safe. Not after what happened and it gets worse if you take a look at all the Gangs and disasters."

Alan sighed. "What they are getting at, Danny is that the world needs a new leader before there isn't a world left to rule."

"So what do you say, Dan?" Lacey tentatively asked.

Danny thought about it long and hard. Scenario after scenario went through his brain.  
Any other day, he would have said no.  
But today, he looked deep inside himself.  
And there was only one answer that would make him happy.  
That would keep Taylor safe.

"Okay," Danny answered.  
"Okay?" Kurt echoed.  
"Yes, Let's take over the world."

Kurt, Lacey and Alan smiled, pleased that they were back in business.

Danny stood up.  
"Let's go to the base then."

The pleased expressions turned into confused ones.  
"Danny, We don't have a base..." Lacey spoke up.  
"Yes we do, I built it in my free time."

Danny left the table and made a hand signal to Lewis. Lewis' eyes widened but he smiled and reached down to press something behind the bar. Danny nodded to him and walked to the stairs leading to the basement, followed by his confused friends who shared a look with each other.

They followed him down to the basement where they found alcohol in storage, an elevator that seemed to pop out of the floor and a terrified nineteen-year-old girl.  
She had blue eyes and blond hair, similar to her father upstairs, tied up in a pony-tail. She was wearing an Apron with The Final Word's logo on it over her shirt and skinny jeans.  
She started at the noise of Danny coming down the stairs and paled when she saw who it was.  
"Dad was telling the truth..." She mumbled to herself.

"Hello Clara, I'm just passing through." Danny greeted the shocked girl.

Danny went over to the elevator and opened the door. The elevator looked like your typical elevator that you found in buildings. The inside even looked like it had just been in an office building.  
"Alright, Everybody on the Elevator. I built the base underground."

"How big is it?" Lacey asked, incredulous but still entering the elevator first.  
Danny took a moment to think. "... About fifteen levels I think? At least three times bigger than an Endbringer Shelter with room to expand."

"When did you build this?" Kurt asked with a laugh. He was excited that his friend had built all this.  
"Oh, Annette said that i should take up a hobby and the Dockworkers needed a job." Danny casually said.  
"Where did you get that kind of money?" Alan asked.  
"Investments and intense stock trading."

Kurt hopped into the elevator like a happy child. Alan was still not too sure about something.  
"If the base is that deep underground... What about the Aquifer under the city?"  
"What Aquif... Ooooh." Danny realised. "Yeah, It isn't there anymore."

Alan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.  
"Don't tell me that you built a secret base, secretly and secretly replaced the Aquifer with it."  
"Ok, I won't tell you that, but the elevator takes a while to get to aquifer depth so please get in."

Alan sighed as he got into the elevator. He had the feeling that this might be the start of a harrowing adventure.

When the elevator doors closed, the elevator sunk back into the floor, the section of concrete above it slotting back into place on the floor, leaving no evidence of the elevator's existence.  
Having witnessed all this, Clara knew that she needed to do one thing.  
"Dad! Can we talk about that employment opportunity you mentioned!"

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AN: Well this was the lucky nominee for the Inspiration lottery. Once again, this is unbeta'ed and now the premise is revealed!  
I enjoy writing this story and hope that the humor is good.

Enjoy the writing.  
Comments and Criticisms welcome


	3. Inception: 1,3

**Secret Subterranean Base of Evil (SSBE)**

Alan Barnes had learnt to expect many things from Danny Hebert over the years.  
Danny had built mountain lairs, cures to biomechanical diseases, biomechanical diseases, dimensional portals, sentient warbots, sentient robot-psychologists for the warbots, a virus to reprogram Hero's reprogrammed warbots, zombies, and many more fantastical gadgets or things that probably would make normal scientists cry over a misspent youth.

The point was, as Alan descended into Danny's base below the city, he expected the most fantastical but completely scientific sights and technology.  
The base failed to live up to expectations...

Instead of pristine, white walls, he was greeted by flooring that hadn't seen a mop in at least a decade and many of the once white wall panels had fallen to the floor, exposing the crumbling wall underneath.

It was also dark as well, many of the lights having lost their ability to illuminate anything more than a few feet away. All of these things had broken Alan's expectations so much that all he could do after leaving the pristine elevator was gape at the state of the corridor. The others' reaction was similar. Danny looked on with contemplation and some disappointment, Lacey looked at the corridor with slight disgust at its condition and Kurt looked eager as ever, the ruined state somehow increasing his excitement over the base.

 _Well, Kurt was always one for an adventure_. Alan thought as he looked around at the mess.  
And as he saw a glimpse of a round, chocolate frosted form scurrying deeper into the shadows, Alan knew that it would be a pretty big adventure in cleaning this place.

"Don't worry people," Danny said to the group as they walked into the dark hallway, the elevator doors closing behind him. "I'm sure that the other levels of the base are in better condition."  
"How many floors are there?" Kurt asked curiously as his wife gingerly stepped over some rubble.  
"About forty or so. It got really expensive putting in trams for more than that." Danny explained, shaking his head slightly.

Alan was used to Danny's penchant for larger than usual lairs, so forty floors of base didn't phase him... But a tram? On each floor?  
Alan voiced his concerns to his friend and he got a toothy grin in response.  
"Well, Alan. Since this base is deep enough that we don't have to worry about digging into your average endbringer shelter, I decided to take the liberty of designing this base so that it wouldn't make the same mistake as the last base..." Danny's grin only grew as he continued.

"Was it digging too deep into the volcano?" Kurt piped up, being superhuman meant that lava didn't really hurt, but it had taken him forever to fish out the remains of his best boots out of the accidental lava spring.

 _"Attention, unauthorised lava surge in corridor 9-D. Please evacuate immediately." boomed a calm male voice from the loudspeakers as lava flowed down the corridor, molten rock lapping against the walls and doors.  
Kurt grimaced as he stuck his arm back into the molten rock from his position on top of a cooler rock that had come along for the ride. He could feel the flesh of his arm bubbling and charring and being renewed by his healing ability, only to bubble and char again._

Normally sticking one's arm in lava was not considered healthy living and would earn you one less arm and a mental instability diagnosis from the base doctor. For Kurt, it was simply unpleasant... The reason Kurt was cooking his hand to rare repeatedly? His favorite boot.  
No one had been prepared for a very authentic edition of The Floor is Lava and so Kurt had been swept away by the sudden surge of molten rock.

After he had made it to relative safety, he noticed one thing. There was no boot on his left foot. He then saw it sink into the lava.  
So he decided to get it back.  
After five minutes of searching, Kurt wasn't so enthusiastic about finding his boot anymore but he couldn't bring himself to give up just yet.

Kurt had faced down heroes, villains, mercenaries, and secret agents. Most of those times, Kurt had come out on top. and being defeated by liquid rock left a bad taste in his mouth.

Then again, Kurt couldn't win all of his battles.

"I hate you!" Kurt heard a shout over the sound of sizzling lava. Looking up, he could see a minion being pulled away from the lava onto another rock further down the corridor.  
"Shut up Anakin! Get on the high ground!" the minion's friend, with a surprisingly majestic beard, yelled back as he pulled the minion up.  
Kurt grimaced at the state of the poor minion. The lava seemed to have burnt off an arm and both his legs.  
'Maybe he would consider the cyborg program?' Kurt thought to himself.

Kurt turned back to the lava.  
Might as well get this over with quickly.

Danny's grin faded a little.

"Was it building a 5-star hotel right next to the base?" Lacey asked. If she was honest with herself, it was actually a good plan to deal with the completely oblivious tourists who seem to have some sort of fetish for uncharted islands or something. Unfortunately, Danny had messed up in a typical Danny fashion and the hotel had become one of the world's leading tourist destinations. The fact that Leviathan, the aquatic Endbringer with hydrokinesis, had apparently passed by repeatedly only added to its fame.  
Lacey would admit to enjoying the facilities of the hotel, as both guest and staff, but it became incredibly difficult to keep a secret base top secret when it had a world renowned resort right next to it.  
 _  
Lacey was reminded of all the times that she regretted having such a bleeding heart. She shifted her borrowed uniform slightly, Lacey still wasn't used to impersonating someone a few sizes smaller than her._

This had all started when her friend, a minion valet named Sarah, told her that she had a romantic rendezvous with a guard named Jackson. The problem came in when the minion meant to run the poker table, a guy called Jeffery, accidentally walked into an incinerator pit trap after a long day.  
Thankfully, the incinerator was being cleaned at the time.  
Unfortunately, burners still hurt when you fall on them from great height. So with Jeffery still in the infirmary, Sarah was forced to take his shift at the poker table in the casino.

Lacey had decided to help out and pretend to be Sarah for her shift while the real Sarah went off for her date. Lacey was looking forward to it, minding a poker table with her skills was actually kind of fun and she always found doing menial base jobs interesting considering the intensity of her normal workload.

Not to mention she found the female Valet uniform sexy and totally wanted to show it off to Kurt later.

But today was not a normal day.  
Nothing was more evidence of that but the figure made out of solid water, browbeating all of the other poker players.  
Leviathan had come to play again.

No one knew why Leviathan came to play in the casino. The first time he did, all that appeared was a humanoid figure made out of solid water and a briefcase full of money.  
To say that no one was enthusiastic about Leviathan's presence was an understatement.  
The casino had standards after all.

There was a problem, however. Technically, as an entity with cash and a willingness to play, he was allowed to play in the casino. It had seemed hopeless until Danny had appeared and told him that there was no proof that he was of legal age and thus the casino could not responsibly allow the Endbringer to participate. With a mobile whiteboard and a marker, Leviathan protested vehemently but in the end, left.

He then arrived the next day with a piece of crystal and asked Danny to carbon-date it.  
Danny stopped counting after 50 million years.

That was how Leviathan became a semi-regular at the casino and that was why Lacey was currently uncomfortable manning the poker table. It wasn't because of any fear for the mass-murdering creature, Danny probably could deal with him in seconds if he went beserk.  
No, because Leviathan was scary good at poker.  
As the Endbringer signaled that he was raising the bet, Lacey sighed.

There wouldn't be any shortage of losers tonight.  
Or complaints.

Danny's grin had devolved to a smile.

"Was it the work safety audit you applied for?" Alan contributed. Danny had been paranoid about the Forces of Justice sabotaging the construction of the base one week and so had made a few covert deals to organise inspectors to come and get the base to OSHA standard. The sheer amount of paperwork that Alan had to work through for those inspections was back-breaking.  
Apparently, death-traps weren't part of the safety code.  
Who knew?  
The sheer amount of infiltrators in that fiasco was enormous…  
 _  
Alan stared skeptically at the latest Inspector to come and inspect the base. He was glad that this one looked slightly more laidback than the last one. The last inspector had been arguing about every single aspect of the base and had started fights with more than one of the construction minions over the way to expand the base. He was right about some of his complaints, though. Like the integrity of the safety rail around the shark tank. Unfortunately, that was by demonstrating the insufficiency of the current safety rails._

 _At least the sharks don't need to be fed now._

 _Alan couldn't shake the feeling that this new inspector wasn't going to cause trouble, though._  
 _Maybe it was the way he glanced around Alan's office?_  
 _The way he kept starting to reach for his coat?_  
 _Alan decided it was probably the poorly applied, fake mustache._  
 _Alan also determined that his suit was_ waaaaaaay _better than the man in front of him._

 _"So, you say you are an inspector?" Alan asked the nervous man._  
 _"Y-Yes. I am." The man stammered back._

 _Alan inspected the documents, putting his law degree to work to find the smallest inconsistencies._  
 _Alan then looked carefully at one document, looked back to the man and then back to the document._  
 _"Inspector… Corleone was it?"_  
 _"Yes."_  
 _Alan gave the 'man' his most serious lawyer look. "Are you a woman?"_  
 _The expression of the 'man' morphed into surprise. "What?"_  
 _"The document says you are a woman Inspector," Alan said, attempting to keep his face serious. "It isn't immediately obvious so I ask again, Are you a woman?"_

 _'She' was sweating bullets now._  
 _"Yes, I am." 'She' eventually said._

 _Alan put down the paper._  
 _"That was a trick question_

 _ **Mr** Corleone. We had your background checked since before you arrived. **Agent.** "  
The Agent's face twisted with tranquil anger and quickly reached into his pocket… Only to find nothing there.  
"Oh, yeah. Lacey confiscated your gun and wallet earlier." Alan said, shrugging off the implied threat to his life.  
"Huh?"  
Alan smiled as he whipped out a weird, phone-shaped device "Oh yes, It was when she took this pick of Little Corleone and sent it to everyone on the base with the caption "Oh my, look at this cute thing I found" laughing face."_

 _"What?" the agent said, befuddled as Alan showed him the picture of Little Corleone._  
 _"For what it's worth… I'm sorry for your loss."_  
 _Alan then pressed a specific spot in his chair._

 _The floor opened up beneath the agent and the man fell through, screaming._

 _Alan closed the Incinerator pit door again. There was a reason his office was pleasantly warm all year round and the pit was an easy way to deal with more complicated… legal problems._  
 _Besides, hidden gun turrets were too cliche._

Danny's grin had disappeared completely.

"None of those things but you make good points" Danny admitted with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.  
"What I'm talking about is the fact that our base was too small. We were trying to conquer the world and to do it we only had a small island and a base with three levels to do it with."  
Danny then shrugged. "In retrospect, I wouldn't have been surprised if we would have failed due to a lack of minions.."

"We didn't have any problems before," Kurt interjected. " Even with all the 'accidental' casualties, we never had a manpower shortage."  
"That's true, but we had access to a huge pool of manpower. That pool is now overtaken by gangs, the CUI and the PRT. That isn't very sustainable to recruit massively in a short time frame, and the casualties would quickly pile up considering on how much manpower our 'enemies' can field," Danny emphasised by physically doing air quotes. "Admittedly traps are amazing but considering the general intelligence of our minions…"

Danny didn't need to continue, everyone there remembered the terrible amounts of chaos that could happen when minions got caught in the traps. Thankfully, most of the traps were non-lethal but, unfortunately, that made the chaos worse.  
It wasn't uncommon for the tired hotel shift to find themselves starting a spiral that would leave about half of the base temporarily infirm.

The fact that Danny used to have a habit of bodily throwing incompetent minions into "the Crucible" didn't help the situation a lot.

"So," Danny suddenly said, clapping his hands. "I made this base, a lot bigger. There are forty floors and each floor has the length of about a quarter of the city." The assembled group's jaws collectively dropped at that. Danny continued, oblivious. "That gives us enough space for almost everything we need and can be expanded if we need to do so."  
Danny turned around and faced the rubble. "This time, we will do everything right. This time, I won't let the possibility of a family life prevent me from protecting my daughter."

Danny turned back to his friends and colleges, "You followed me twenty years ago because I had a vision for the world. I still have that vision. We will conquer Earth Bet, regardless of what stands against us. I will make this world better, and I thank you for reminding me of that."

That wasn't Danny's best speech, not by far, but it reminded everyone of why they followed him in the first place. Everyone there was reminded that Danny cared, cared enough that he would lead the world himself if no one could do it properly.  
While Kurt and Lacey's faces held awe, Alan felt a shit-eating grin overcome his own.  
"Only one thing to do now... Team hug!" Alan shouted and leapt towards Danny.

"Wha, No!" Danny said as Alan latched on to his friend, squeezing with such intensity that it made Danny's bones ache. Alan knew this was one of the endless ways to mess with his friend. Danny never liked group hugs and Alan waited for the right moment...

There... Lacey, with a big grin, leapt upon both Alan and Danny and caught them in a hug. Lacey could never resist the opportunity for a hug. Alan's smile grew wider as Danny's expression turned to resignation.

 _Wow, I have missed this._

Not to be outdone, Kurt walked up to the group and joined in, picking them up while doing so. And so the corridor in the secret base was home to the laughter of friend, who were not yet old men and women, planning on taking over the world...

 **"If I had arms. I would have loved to join in."**

And there was a creepy, robotic voice in there with them.

Almost instantly, the group was disentangled and ready for an attack. All but Danny, who stared, transfixed upon a nearby wall panel.  
"Is that you, Gbot?" Danny asked aloud.  
The wall panel sprung to life, the now active screen showing a stylized silhouette of a man in a suit.  
 **"Yes. I did not expect your return. Otherwise, I would have... Cleaned up."**  
"Who are you?" Kurt asked, tension in his voice.  
 **"I am designated as Government Bot. Or rather GBot which can be shortened to G. I am a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence designed for governance,"** The screen now showed the suited silhouette with its arms outstretched horizontally. **"My duties are to govern this base and anything else assigned to me."**

Lacey kicked a piece of rubble. "You haven't done a great job," She snarked to the wall panel.  
The figure on the screen was now back to normal. **"You are correct. I have been... Preoccupied."**  
"With what?" Danny asked quizzically. Alan knew Danny well enough to know that he was probably preparing for a really stupid idea.  
Alan had enough experience with AI to know that they got amazingly stupid ideas. Often.

 **"I have been downloading entertainment media from Earth Aleph."**

"What?" Alan couldn't contain his surprise at such an answer. It wasn't the worst thing but... Alan had expected more.  
"Wait," Danny interrupted. "That would mean the increase in dimensional transmissions has been..."  
 **"Noticeable, yes sir."**

 _"Dragon. Look at this! There has been another spike in dimensional transmissions! Do you know what this means!?"  
"Colin, It's probably not what you think."  
"No. This is definitely proof of THEIR presence."  
"Colin. You are Armsmaster. Surely this is a bit too unprofessional for you."  
"There IS a secret base under the city. This is proof of that."  
"Sigh."_

"Ehh, I'm sure nothing will come of that." Danny brushed the matter off. "How much did you download?"  
Alan shook his head. Luckily the AI was underground where the copyright lawyers couldn't get to him. Duelling other lawyers wasn't very fun.  
 **" Every single piece of entertainment media for the last sixteen years."** GBot casually replied.  
Alan thanked multiple deities that the copyright lawyers had no idea where GBot was.  
They would be laying siege if they did.

By now everyone had calmed down and were standing around casually.  
"We can catch up later," Danny proclaimed. "The question is... GBot! Are you ready to get to work?"  
 **"Yes, sir!"**

"Are you sure about this Danny?" Alan asked his friend. "After today we won't be able to walk away from this legally and we might lose things along the way."  
Danny waved him off. "I've thought about this."  
Danny gestured to the base. "I've **really** thought about this."

Danny put a hand on Alan's shoulder. "And don't worry. The road to World Conquest is paved with sacrifice."  
Danny's smile turned triumphant.  
"And the route we are going... We don't need roads."

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AN: Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for the reviews. I do read them and I enjoy people commenting on my work, so please keep it up.

I would also like to apologise if the formatting is weird in places, thats for you :)

I had some hard times with this chapter because I had no idea if my humor was on target in this chapter. Either way, things are picking up.  
I also had a hard time of deciding what GBot's voice was going to sound like.  
I decided on Helios from Deus Ex but a Dalek was a close second.

I appreciate every comment that comes through and discussion so please tell me how I'm doing.

Comments and Criticism welcome.  
Hoped you enjoyed the writing.


	4. Inception: 1,4

_Well, People are in the process of trying to burn my country's universities down so you know that means two things... I picked up SWTOR again (And it is so much better than it used to be) and I wrote this I guess..._

 _By the Way, Thank you for all the reviews!_

 _Enjoy the writing!_

 **Dockworkers Union Assembly Hall  
January 16**

Wade Smith was a simple man in a complicated world. Not too long ago, he had a wife, three kids and a reasonable job at the docks, helping ships move their cargo around. That was over a decade ago and now his wife had left him for someone younger and richer, his job was as dry as the wrecks who blocked the harbor and all his kids had moved away.

At least his kids still liked him... Maybe.

Being a dockworker in Brockton Bay was an exercise in fu... Fu... It was something a normal people didn't do. Thanks to the Endbringers, using ships to move goods wasn't very popular anymore as no one wanted to find out that your ship and all of the fancy things on it suddenly sank to the bottom of the ocean. Wade could imagine that made a few wall street fat cats grow bald from worry. That, of course. didn't mean that ocean trade had stopped completely, people were just too stubborn to let random death and financial ruin stop them. The problem had come from the fact that there wasn't enough space for shipping boats when wrecks of older shipping boats were double parked in the bay and so the shipping industries simply ignored Brockton Bay as though the ship graveyard was an immovable obstacle.

What this meant for the bay was that there was no shipping industry in a city where a lot of jobs were based on the shipping industry. With such a large and now unemployed dockworker population, labor jobs were hard to come by and the economy around the docks sank about as fast as those ships did. What was once full warehouses and busy streets became abandoned buildings and deserted roads. It was common knowledge that such desperate times would drive people to crime and that was how the E88, Merchants and ABB became so popular.  
And these gangs weren't like the old ones, that was for sure.

The city used to run smoothly, controlled by the Police, PRT, and the criminal organisations.  
There were many but only a few that mattered and oddly enough, the Empire wasn't one of them.  
The first was Lustrum's Sparrows. They were an extremist feminist faction that had didn't have a lot of power but was still present almost everywhere in Brockton Bay. They didn't really have any territory but they weren't constrained to specific territory either and considering they didn't really do much with ordinary people, no one really minded.

The second was the Brokers under Marquis. They were essentially a cross between the Yakuza and the Mob. None of their activities or businesses that they endorsed were entirely legal, especially the bars/gambling dens/extremely loud party venues that were very popular, but they had the respect of the town and kept their territory safe and controlled for the most part. It wasn't even taboo to tell people that you were a Broker in those days. All in all, they weren't that bad and their only real enemies was New Wave who seemed to have some sort of grudge with Marquis.

The third were the Teeth. If the Brokers were the respected and orderly criminals, then the Teeth were their jubilant and chaos-loving opposite. Led by the Butcher, The Teeth's territory was often a contradictory place. It was dangerous but safe, chaotic but organised and dirty but clean somehow. Back in the day, the Butcher was considerably less crazy than he/she was now and could actually run the Teeth like a gang rather than a party of mayhem and misery. To say that they weren't the most popular gang would be an understatement. One does not simply organise orphan fighting tournaments and not receive negative reviews.

The most important faction in the bay was by far The Evil Organisation. Despite the descriptive name, one could say that they were actually the best for the bay itself. Of course they had a sometimes high injury rate and tried to take over the world but they provided steady employment and didn't cause any mayhem and destruction anywhere they held. They were evil, but they made contracts instead of protection rackets and they plotted instead of doing heists. The Evil Organisation was led by the Evil Genius himself, a man rumored to be even smarter than the smartest Tinker, and his two henchmen and rumored lawyer. In Wade's opinion, If that Evil Genius did have a lawyer, that just made him way more evil than the people knew.

If Wade had to join any of them, he would have probably joined The Evil Organisation, at least he wouldn't have been bored like he was now. Unfortunately, Wade knew that he wouldn't be able to find steady employment down that path of life. The Brokers… broke up after New Wave invaded Marquis' home and challenged him to eight simultaneous chess games and a dance off in order to arrest him (or at least that was what Wade had heard) and the Sparrows were out for obvious reasons. The Teeth had evacuated the city to Boston after the latest Butcher made it known that they hated fish with a passion and couldn't stand being on the coast. The Evil Organisation dissolved after the Evil Genius retired, or escaped to the moon. No one was really sure what happened and the stories went from him settling down with a wife and kid to the Evil Genius secretly being a girl and sneaking into the Birdcage after Lustrum.

It wasn't to ponder a life of crime that Wade was at the Dockworkers Union building today. Danny Hebert, pretty much the effective leader of the Dock Workers and the man who fought to get the Dockworkers more jobs however he could, had called the Dockworkers for their weekly meeting and if the email was correct, he had a pretty big announcement. Wade hoped it was good news because it looked like work was really hard to find if the hall was so crowded on a Sunday morning. From wall to wall of the rather large hall, and having been converted from a docks warehouse it was really large, stood Dockworkers. In front of them was a stage, it was more like the top half of a shipping container, with an impressive sound system, which was donated by Danny. With the exception of the audio system, the hall had cost the Union almost nothing, which was appropriate considering the current economy in the Bay.

Wade was brought out of his musings when he saw Danny Hebert himself, along with his friends Alan Barnes and Kurt, walking to the steps by the stage, which were actually arranged boxes. "Come on Danny, This might not work out so well…" Wade could barely hear Alan. Alan Barnes was one of those divorce lawyers and Wade didn't really trust lawyers all that much. Crossed with Wade's own experience in the separation of marriage, Wade got the feeling that Alan was more evil than most lawyers.  
"Leave Danny alone Alan, The guys will go for this." Kurt replied. Kurt was extremely friendly around the Union and many people trusted and liked him. He and his wife was so well known and friendly that you didn't really need to use their surnames at all. Everyone knew who you were talking about the moment when you said "Did you see Kurt surfing that car door yesterday?" or "Have you noticed Lacey knew way too much about your wife?"

Danny stepped onto the stage and walked over to the microphone where he cleared his throat.  
"Good Morning everyone!" Danny said jubilantly to the crowd. "Welcome to another meeting of the Dockworkers Union. I have a very important announcement today but let us get the announcements out of the way first."

Danny took out a sheaf of papers from under his arm. "Firstly, I would like to congratulate Work Detail thirteen for dealing with the Merchants from a few days ago that tried to put some of our own in the hospital or worse." At this, a round of cheers and backslaps could be heard. Danny continued, "Yes, the ambulance took thirty extra minutes to stabilize the gangers and the word is that one of them lost a leg. So good job team!" Another round of congratulations sounded out.  
"Unfortunately, despite the creative implement that our very own Jason Briggs gave Mush, the PRT called in Panacea and he will make a full recovery." Various disappointed noises sounded out from the crowd at the Merchant cape's complete recovery.

 _Amy looked at the metal pole that Velocity had brought in. She turned to Velocity. "I don't think the hospital has dogs."  
He shook his head. "You misunderstand. That is Mush and I found him by the Docks."  
Amy turned back to it. "I can see that it is mush. What do you want me to do with it?"  
Velocity facepalmed and pointed at the shish kebab. "No, HE is Mush."  
"Please kill me" came a voice from the pole.  
"Oh my…"_

"I encourage you not to lose hope, and simply do better next time."  
Danny cleared his throat to continue. "On the next item of the agenda. I would like to congratulate Mr Chang on his new baby girl." The crowd of dockworkers all called out congratulations as Chang, a good-looking twenty-five-year-old man, accepted the praise as though he had done this before.  
"In other related news," Danny continued when the crowd settled down. "The intervention for Mr Chang is scheduled for Wednesday because having twelve children with four women that aren't in a polygamous marriage is not an achievement, it is a problem." The Dockworkers cheered while Mr Chang's face reddened in embarrassment.

Danny looked at the papers in his hand with a contemplative look on his face. Wade was shocked at what Danny did next. He dropped his papers.  
And based on the sudden silence from the crowd, they were shocked too. Danny never dropped his papers, ever. He was always so composed in business and even when he unleashed his temper, he never dropped his papers. "Today isn't the day for normal meetings," Danny said quietly. "That is because the announcement I have come here today is too disruptive to the Union to simply act like it doesn't affect anything."  
Danny started pacing on the stage. "This news I have to give you can possibly change the direction of your very life. It will most certainly change the Union irreversibly. So I must give you this information appropriately and cautiously."

Danny turned to the crowd as he stopped in the middle of the stage again. "So I must ask you all a simple question!"

Danny raised his arm into the air. "DO YOU WANT PAYING WORK!?"  
Wade couldn't even hear his own cheers from the uproarious cheering of the Dockworkers.

===========================================================  
Alan made a thoughtful noise. It wasn't often that he made noises like that. Over a decade of practising law meant that you had so many surprises that you couldn't really be all that surprised at all. There were a rare few times that Alan was surprised and what he was reading had given him that emotion alright. It was also surprising that a teenager's journal was the thing that surprised him. Then again, it was Taylor's Journal.

 _If it would be anyone who could surprise me., then I'm not surprised that it would be Danny's daughter. who would be one of the people to do it._ Alan thought to himself.

Alan was sitting in his still be constructed office. Despite Danny having laid the groundwork for the base long ago, so much had caved in or Danny had fallen into laziness and only done the necessities with exception to the Science floor. Oh yes, they didn't have a lab anymore, instead an entire floor of the base was dedicated to science. Alan contented himself with the legal headaches from the upcoming disasters, and he would gladly let Kurt have all the other headaches. Alan actually preferred it this way, it gave him the chance to personalise his office. Alan was a little disappointed that he couldn't have an incineration pit in his office on the account of there being no room but he was hopeful that he could find something just as excellent at dealing with… problems.

Alan looked up and pushed his comfy office chair slightly backwards. With a clang, a metal beam fell in front of him, just where he used to be sitting. "Sorry about that Mr Barnes." Said a nearby man in yellow overalls and a white hardhat. On the man's shoulder was the logo of The Evil Organisation, Alan never knew how nostalgic he could feel for a stylized globe.  
"It's no problem. Just try to not drop things at my head again."  
With a sheepish nod, The minion quickly gathered up the beam with his nearby fellows and proceeded to try and reattach it to the ceiling again. Alan had to admit that Danny's plan to hire the Dockworker's Union had paid off massively for the labor to rebuild the base. Alan was also pretty sure that a lot of them might stay on as permanent minions after the base was finished, despite their contract expiring after the base was constructed.

Alan's musings were interrupted when Danny walked in through the doorless door frame.  
"Hey Alan," His best friend greeted. "What are you doing?"  
"Just reading through Taylor's evidence of my daughter's activities." Alan calmly replied.  
Danny's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Oh, What did you find?"  
Alan sighed in disappointment. "Nothing really. It's a journal so it can't really be used against the anyone and the girls didn't do anything special to Taylor before the locker. Just organised bullying." Alan put down the book. "How'd it go with you?"

Danny's sigh was full of anguish that Alan knew that only a father could feel.  
"Taylor woke up today," Danny said slowly. "The doctors said that she suffered some sort of psychotic episode and now they have her under observation in isolation."  
"I'm sorry Danny." Alan said to his friend.  
Danny straightened up. "It's fine. She'll be alright."  
Alan had an idea and picked up the discarded book, searching for the specific page that he wanted…  
There, found it.

"At least she is your daughter…" Alan smirked knowingly.  
"What makes you say that?" Danny asked curiously. Alan's smirk grew as he handed his best friend, his daughter's journal. As Danny read, a smile formed on his face

 ** _Taylor's Plan To Defeat the Trio!_**

 _Zombies eating Emma's stupid face._  
 _-Found evidence that zombies exist! Can't find them though._

 _Plant Cameras to find evidence of bullying_  
 _-Have no money for spy cameras. Sophia would probably find them anyway._

 _Invent Mind Control beam to make the Trio confess!_  
 _-Don't know how to do that. Also, no money._

 _BEEES!_  
 _-Don't make plans before going to bed._

 _Drown the school in tea!_  
 _-Don't make plans before morning tea._

 _Cake Slimes!_ _  
1)_ _Find slimes._ _Ask Greg where to find slimes.  
2) ?  
3) Profit!_

Alan placed his hand on Danny's shoulder in a reassuring manner.  
"Don't worry Dan. She'll be alright."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
AN: I had planned the Journal piece for a while and the rest of the chapter just kind of grew around it. Like a sentient but humorous mold.  
Either way, I'm enjoying writing this story as I get feedback from it. That being said, I read all comments so please do comment.  
I hope the humor is on key in this chapter.

Comments and Criticisms welcome.


	5. Interlude: Red, White and DEUS VULT

Emma Barnes was worried.  
Her dad was never sitting at the table at nine in the morning on a Saturday. He normally only woke up at ten and was never fully dressed until eleven on weekends. Now he was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper in one hand and drinking coffee with the other. What made Emma especially suspicious was the white cake box that was on the table next to her dad.

Somehow, Emma felt that she wasn't going to be able to hang out with Sophia today.

Despite her inner turmoil, Emma took a deep breath and entered the kitchen like nothing was wrong. Her nerves were not worth delaying her Breakfast over.  
As she opened the fridge, she finally heard her dad say something.  
"Good Morning, Emma," Alan said, the early morning slur completely absent from his voice. "Are you ready to go?"  
"Go where?" Emma asked, honestly confused.  
Her dad put down his news paper and turned to face Emma, a single eyebrow raised.  
"Your first therapy appointment that we discussed on Tuesday is today. Did you forget?"

Emma tried to suppress her grimace. Her dad was adamant on the fact that she should get therapy because she obviously did the right thing in showing her former friend, Taylor Hebert, her place in the world. Taylor was pathetic compared to her and got everything she deserved. Honestly, she had hoped that her Dad would have forgotten about the obviously unnecessary therapy.  
"I don't need it Dad. Can't you cancel it?"  
She knew how this would go. They would argue for a bit and he would get mad but eventually something more important would come up and he would put off the argument indefinately. It had worked so often that she was already internally arming herself for the inevitable argument.

Which was why she was surprised when all she heard from him was a sigh.  
"I know what you are trying to do," He almost sighed. "You want to start an argument that I don't have time for and hope that I will for get about it. Well, If you don't believe that you need therapy then I guess you should open this box..."  
He tapped on the box for emphasis.  
She approached the box quickly and was just about to rip it open when she heard something.  
It was so soft that she only barely heard it barely heard it.

A soft meep.

She froze instantly, hands quickly darting away from the monster in the box. She felt the blood leave her face after she fully realised what almost happened.  
"Dad... Why?" She asked Alan, a plea in her voice.  
Alan went back to his paper as he answered.  
"You are going to therapy anyway. It's your choice if it's for two problems or one."

Emma stood back from her father. That was diabolical. It was practical. It was shameless...  
It was something she would have done...

"Your eyes aren't the only things that you inherited from me." He answered the unspoken question.  
"I'm not opening it." Emma said, determination filling her like the confidence that a model had on a catwalk.  
"And I'm not going to force you to," Alan said, completely unbothered by her defiance. "It will be here, waiting for you and it would be such a shame of your little sister, Sarah opened it instead..."

Her confidence fled her like the calories off of a dieting model.  
"You wouldn't..."  
"You are right, I wouldn't. But the box would be just sitting here, and it would be amazingly available for inquisitive little girls to simply find it."  
Emma was unsure. She **didn't** have a problem but she couldn't let her sister open that box either...  
Maybe she could hide it...  
"Hey, Dad! Is that a Present!?" Shouted the little member of the Barnes family as she sped into the kitchen.  
"I'll DO IT!" She unintentionally screamed as she grabbed the box and ran out of the room to dispose of the monster inside.

She was in such a hurry that she didn't see the smiling faces of her dad and sister as they high-fived each other.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Amy Dallon had woken up that morning, It had not been with the happy chirping of birds and a bright smile on her face, ready to help the needy and sick.  
No, when Amy Dallon had woken up that morning, it had been with discontented mumbling about five more minutes and the slight craving for a cigarette.

When she had finally gotten the strength to get ready for the day, it had not been with a spring in her step and singing along with random animals that would have somehow found their way into the house.  
No. When she had gotten out of bed, it had been more of a stumble that was punctuated by enthusiastic yawns.

When it was time to get dressed, it wasn't a beautiful white dress that flowed around a flawless form.  
No. It was the same voluminous robes that she had worn yesterday that she placed on her tired frame.

No, she didn't live a fabulous life with her sister like in those fanfictions thatshereadoutofpurecuriosityhonest.  
Amy Dallon lived a life of work, stress and dealing with ungrateful idiots.  
" _Thank you for curing my terminal disease that I would most have certainly died from! Now I'm going to yell at you for not making me look like a supermodel."_ Was a reaction that she received too often every day.  
It seemed to her that the sick and needy were the minority of the people that Amy healed these days. It seemed that the majority of the people that she healed these days were whiners or thought that they were entitled to be healed. Not to mention the sheer amount of healing that she did for the PRT.

Yes, she understood that they needed to recover from injuries quickly in order to protect the city better but it seemed that ever since they started calling on her that they had gotten a lot more careless.  
They came to her with bullet wounds, burns and other serious injuries but they also came to her with sprains, cuts and once even a stomach ache.

It irritated her that grown PRT officers would bother her with the most inane problems when there were kids with horrible diseases that she could be saving instead. Not to mention the downright traumatic things that they showed her like the recent shishkebab incident. Just thinking about how mushy Mush was to the touch made her feel nauseous.

She felt like leaving a stomach ache or two in the people who waste her time and that only served to make her feel worse about herself. It would be so easy to do wrong with her powers.

She shook off her self-incrimination and checked her form in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied that no one could see just how sick of everyone she was, she moved to leave after grabbing her car keys. She had work to do after all. That was the problem with being part of a heroic parahuman family. There were "expectations".

Amy was thankful that the roads were quiet today, just like every Saturday. She didn't feel like dealing with traffic on her "day off".  
The hospital had practically begged her to take weekends off and if she was honest with herself, she would have loved too.  
Her family had encouraged it too but she had seen the looks that her mom gave her. It was that subtle look of disappointment, that look that told Amy that her mom wouldn't voice her disappointment but was disappointed all the same that she was spending her time away from helping people.

She would rather deal with exhaustion and ungrateful patients than to deal with that stare.

And so when she had finally made it to the hospital, she had already felt the exhaustion that had been her constant companion over the week. At least she still had Sunday, that was one day her mom couldn't take away from her.

As she entered the hospital, she had already begun to feel the exhaustion that had been her companion for the past week.  
 _Ah, crippling exhaustion my old friend._ She thought to herself as she took her first steps into the hospital lobby.  
It was only a few steps into the lobby when she had stopped completely.  
She didn't come to the Hospital this early on Saturdays but she practically lived Brockton Bay General Hospital and she knew one thing today.  
Something was wrong.  
She gazed upon the lobby counter, noting that the nurse behind it wasn't looking particularly stressed out and it seemed that she was actually trying to catch some sleep.  
She focused on the waiting area, which had merely one teenager in ABB colours, sleeping, rather than the normal crowd of injured and slightly dying people.  
She investigated the current waiting patient numbers. It didn't even reach double digits...

There was only one explanation...  
For one day this week...  
The hospital wasn't busy...

Beneath her feeling of complete exhaustion, she started to feel giddy. There were no annoying patients trying to crowd around her as she entered the door. There were no urgent messages on her cellphone from the ICU. There wasn't any overworked nurses that Amy would have to fight through to get around the hallways.  
 _I should come on Saturdays more often._ She thought to herself as she felt a genuine smile grow on her face.  
And so, for the first time that she could remember, she entered the hospital with a spring in her step and a smile on her face.

Not as though people could see that smile past her hood.

Amy's mind raced with the possibilities of what she could do with a slow day at the hospital. She could catch up on her reading. She could actually sit down between patients! She could take a nap...  
 _Oh my god... I can take a nap!_ She squeed internally at her realization.  
Her smile grew so much that it hurt her face.

A more cynical part of Amy knew that this couldn't last so the first order of business was to secure a spot to lay down and sleep later. One place came to mind...  
The third floor.

The third floor was filled with wards where the patients either stayed in the long term or the short term and on a day like this, there would be a lot of empty beds that wouldn't be occupied that she could easily claim for "medicinal" uses. With the daydream of how much she would enjoy actually dreaming, she almost floated into the hospital lobby. Amy's steps were light and quick as she sped past the lobby's counter, waking up the unalert nurse by the sheer motion of the young healer's robes.  
"Miss Dallon?" the bleary-eyed nurse asked but Amy was moving too fast to pay attention to her. If you had asked Nurse Welby on what she saw, she would have described a teenager shaped bundle of cloth sprinting down the corridor. Amy would have described it as an enthusiastic stroll. Her sheer enthusiasm meant that the elevator never even occurred to her as she flew up the steps, unable to hear the nurse calling from below.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In terms of hospital beds, some were more comfortable than others. Some were rock hard, others deflated uncomfortably when laid upon and some felt _just right._  
The last category was the most important to Amy Dallon at the moment.

These comfortable beds were valuable commodities when it came to dealing with patients, making their recovery experience better and lessening their amount of complaints through the recovery. Considering this was extremely valuable for the overworked doctors and nurses, Amy hadn't understood why they only had a few of the beds instead of all the beds being comfortable when she had first come to the hospital. She knew now that it was because the hospital was extremely underfunded for the amount of violence that went on in Brockton Bay.

That, and there was a certain satisfaction in giving the injured gang members the worst beds.

From this scarcity of good beds, came a way for doctors and nurses to claim the best beds for themselves. How?  
By making them seemingly the worst beds.  
Thankfully for Amy, she learned that trick from a particularly inebriated nurse on the late shift. It made her feel bad that she had increased the woman's sensitivity to alcohol to get her to that point but she felt better when she had cleaned out her system when the nurse had fallen into a drunken sleep. That was technically a lot more heroic than what any villain would do...

So after modifying her chosen bed in the mostly empty ward with a few choice spoons, leaving it the most uncomfortable bed in the hospital, she decided to find out whether she could get a cup of tea before she fell into an appropriately deep sleep. Greatly hoping that she wouldn't find anyone, she left the hospital room. And immediately found kindly, old Dr West who was busy sharpening a large axe on a nearby desk.

Despite being advanced of age, Amy could see that Dr West wasn't as frail as you would expect a man of his age to be. She could clearly see the toned muscles beneath his doctors coat and she remembered the healthy body he had despite his age. He was exactly what someone would imagine an elderly football player to be. Amy had no idea why he was the way he was. Yes, she could do it but she knew that there was no other way for him to be so fit, especially with what she knew about his day to day activities.

There was no reason she could think of for him to be sharpening what seemed to be a two headed axe either.

In the end though, she didn't care enough to delay her additional sleep and she tried to unobtrusively walk past the focused man. Unfortunately, it was unsurprisingly hard to do in her large, white and red robes and he caught sight of her when she had just made it past him.  
"Ahh," Dr West breathed out in that typical 'Grandfather voice' that he had became known for. "Hello, Panacea. I'm surprised you are here today. You normally come to help out on Sundays."  
Silently cursing to herself, she put on her best polite smile, despite no one being able to see it, and turned towards the old doctor.  
"Hello, Dr West. I needed to take Sunday off this week and so I decided to come today. How are you doing today?"  
"If I had my way, you would take the whole weekend off," The doctor scoffed. "I'm doing fine, myself. Just preparing for the worst, that's all."

Amy couldn't help being curious.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Ahh. I forget. You don't know about Regenerator day."  
Amy felt her eyebrow rise as she stared at the man, she had never heard of something like that during her entire stay at the hospital. Thankfully, Dr West managed to catch onto her unspoken question.  
"Regenerator Day is the day where we use these handy regenerator machines, that we got from a very helpful fellow, on a certain day of the week, mainly Saturdays, but sometimes Sundays depending if the PRT come around on that Saturday."

"What do they do?" Amy had to ask.  
Dr West just chuckled.  
"I have no idea. it's something about using the ambient energy of cell death to restart dead cells but its over the top of my head. Unfortunately it's rather hard to learn things at seventy-five years old."  
"Then why do you hide it from the PRT, surely they could figure the tinkertech out?"  
Dr. West massaged his grey goatee with one hand, balancing the axe on the desk with the other.  
"We did give them one, but they ended up breaking it because of one very important detail."  
"What?" she asked, enthusiasim of something that could give her more free time overpowering her exhaustion.  
West gave her his best impression of a grandfather smile.  
"It's not tinker tech. It was given to us by the Evil Genius himself."

Amy was slightly surprised, she had heard rumors of the Evil Genius who lived in Brockton Bay around the time she was born and she heard of the possibility of him not being a tinker but surely that couldn't be true.  
"Okay, even if it wasn't tinker tech, surely something so useful as a 'Regenerator' wouldn't need to be hidden from the PRT. It could save a lot of lives."  
Dr West shook his head slowly.  
"That's only if the PRT didn't take them for themselves and besides, they have a really big side effect... They make zombies occasionally."  
Amy felt her brain stop.  
"What?"

The doctor shrugged. "It's a side effect when a huge number of cells happen to die simultaneously. Sometimes the regenerator gets them stuck between life and death in a constant cycle and needs to be cut out of the patient. The problem happens is that some of these, 'clumps' start self-replicating and make zombies."  
Amy stared blankly at the old doctor.  
"Really?"  
"Yes. And thanks to my expertise in surgery, I was offered a second job to help deal with them when they appear."  
Dr West flashed a smile that had an energy Amy didn't expect on a man so old.  
"One of the best ways to end the weekend."

Amy had no idea what to say to that. Frankly, she was starting to doubt Dr West's sanity. There was no way zombies were real right?  
"Now," Dr West said as he hefted the axe off the table. "It was nice to see you again Ms Dallon, but I need to check on one of my patients. A one, Ms Hebert I believe."

Amy simply watched him walk away, her mind still reeling with the obviously ludicrous idea that he killed zombies as a side job.  
He _was_ athletic enough for it but zombies weren't real.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, feminine scream as a nurse ran out of a nearby room and was followed by something that caused Amy's brain to attempt to fart.

It was a shambling humanoid creature that looked like a rotting human. Its eyes glowed red and its teeth were a dull white as it slowly chased the fleeing nurse, moving slow enough for the average toddler to out run it. It was also stark naked which made Amy glad that it rotted away to the point it was almost impossible to determine its gender.  
All in all, it looked exactly like you would imagine a zombie to look like.  
"RAAAAAAAR"  
It even sounded like a zombie.

"Dr West to ward 3R. Repeat, Dr West to ward 3R. Code Z. Repeat Ward 3R, Code Z.  
"HOW FORTUITOUS!" Dr West yelled as he passed Amy again, axe ready to be swung.  
The only thing that Amy could do was watch as she saw Dr West tackle the zombie, axe first, and cutting it into pieces as even more zombies shambled out of the room of all shapes and sizes.  
Dr West didn't seem to be unnerved as he threw himself into the miniature horde with reckless abandon as nearby nurses and Doctors tried to ignore the commotion and continue with their work. The only one's paying attention was the rare patients who nervously glanced between the melee and the calm staff members. Even the woman who had screamed was seemingly calming down now.

It was right then that Amy decided that she was going to have her nap without that cup of tea and as she walked away from the madness, she was happy that her bed was in the complete opposite direction of the zombies.

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It was not the first time that Jasmine of the Three Blasphemies had regretted having such an unfortunate name.  
It was not the first time she did so in the countryside of France either.

Yes, it was cool and intimidating. It was also amusing to see people's faces pale and occasionally pray when the three women walked through the streets in full costume and under Chrysta's breaker power, making them look like uncanny monsters in human form. Personally being non-religious, Jasmine didn't have any attachment to the name but now she had to admit that it was more trouble that it was worth.

It had all began two and a half-decades ago when a man only known as The Crusader had come back from his one man crusade against the Evil Genius who tried to take over the world. His reasoning was that "Only God could rule the world and Man should not be the master of all".  
It was the most stupid reason that Jasmine had ever heard, ever.

After the Evil Genius had retired however, The Crusader, who was simply an ordinary man with a family, returned to his native homeland of Italy where it was said that he was looking forward to seeing his family again.  
A Gesellschaft ruled Italy.

Gesellschaft had been spreading through Europe like a neo-Nazi plague. Taking over entire Governments over mere months and securing their place in Europe by eliminating all the opposition that they could. By then, they were the dominant force in Europe and had almost secured Britain and infiltrated the Vatican. It had looked like that Gesellschaft was going to get their goal of a fourth shadow Reich and the Three Blasphemies where happy that they weren't on Gesellschaft's list of enemies.

Over one year, The Crusader had kicked Gesellschaft out of Italy entirely. It was unprecedented. Agents killed, assasins hanged and even a few parahumans were found dead. How did one man, not even a parahuman, manage to dislodge the most expansive neo-Nazi organisation in the height if its power?  
The Crusader only had one response to that question.  
"DEUS VULT!"

After kicking out the Nazi's in Italy, he became a symbol of hope for the parts of Europe that were oppressed by Gesellschaft and a savior to the eyes of the Italian people. Gesellschaft had prepared to deal with him, a single tragic accident to end a mystifying and powerful threat to their rule. Even Jasmine and her two friends had made their own plans to deal with The Crusader if he stood in their way.

And then the Pope made an announcement.

Many thought and were hoping that the pope would condemn the killings that The Crusader had done in the name of his religion.

Instead, the Pope called for a new crusade...  
Against Gesellschaft.

Almost instantly, Europe's political sphere shifted. Corrupt politicians abandoned the neo-nazi ship and Gesellschaft found themselves prosecuted by every community, even other more religious neo-Nazi groups.

Within a year, there were hundreds of men and woman who had volunteered for the crusade and that number grew monthly. Gesellschaft doubled down on their influence in the governments they controlled and managed to get the European Union to place a blanket ban on the sale of firearms to civilians across Europe and considering that the new 'Crusaders' were still legally civilians, Gesellschaft was confident in their victory.

Jasmine quickly dodged a flying boulder as she felt the impacts of hundreds of crossbow bolts on her temporarily metal body.

Apparently, Trebuchets, Crossbows and swords weren't included in that ban.

It had come down to a conflict between a shadow organisation with guns and a warband of religious zealots that had them out-manned, out-sworded and out-catapulted. The conclusion was obvious and within a decade or so, Gesellschaft had been pushed all the way back into Eastern Europe by the new Crusade.

Why did this affect Jasmine and her two friends in the Three Blasphemies? It was because now over half of Europe was under the protection of people who didn't particularly like a name like the Three Blasphemies.  
Also, with all they had done to increase their reputation, they couldn't exactly claim that it was just a name for the three women.

Jasmine's train of thought was interrupted as she spotted a crusader come into a view over a nearby hill, chain and plate mail shining with the iconic red and white heraldry of the crusaders. It's iconic helm turned towards the Three Blasphemies as dozens of similarly dressed crusaders came into view as well.

"Look! There are the Heretics, Get them!" The Crusader yelled in french as he drew his sword and lifted it into the air. "Deus Vult!"  
"Deus Vult!" the army of crusaders continued to chorus as they charged the three parahuman women who had killed hundreds in the name of their country, spreading terror and destruction throughout Europe.

As she used her power to help her and her friends escape the Crusaders, Jasmine couldn't help but regret their group's choice of name.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There you go guys. Hope you enjoy this interlude before the next Arc starts.  
Comments and Criticisms are welcome!  
DEUS VULT.  
(Shout out to the We are Number One song and memes as it got me motivated to finish this)

Next time on TBoBaMF:  
 _"Alright, I can see that I need to teach you how to be... Minions!"  
Taylor didn't like the sound of that, even if she had to admit that she enjoy the saxophone music that the suspicious man in yellow overalls was playing._  
(Warning: These specific sentantances will probably not make it into the actual update)


	6. Obligatory PHO Interlude

**Well guys, The chapter is taking a good while so I decided that, considering this is my (((Shitposting))) Story that I should quickly work up the obligatory PHO interlude so that you guys could see Viktor's... Shitposts...**

Hope you enjoy!

I would also recommend at least looking at the SB or SV versions as the Links work there and the Images exist there too.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards

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 **Topic: Crusader Thread XII: The FLIGHT OF THE NAZIS!  
In: Boards ► People ► Europe**

 **Golden Halo** (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)  
Posted on January 20, 2011:

This thread about this awesome man is too important to die!

Previous thread: **Here**

In new news, The Geschellcraft political machine has been too ineffective at stopping the warrior of the Faith and Crusader has pushed the Neo-Nazis all the way back to... Sweden

Yes you heard that right, apparently even though the rise of Geschellcraft made Nazism popular, the Germans kicked them out of Germany.

One Neo-Nazi in Germany said it was because "They are really bad at being Nazis"

Article **here**.

 **(Showing Page 10 of 10)**

 **► SupremeValidictorian** (Veteran Member)  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
DEUS VULT!

 **► Wag the d0G**  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
Deus Vult!

 **► TooMuchSand**  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
DEUS VULTTTTTT!

 **► WingedOne**  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
DEUS VULT!

 **► Hoomanity** (Cape Daughter)  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
Really guys? It has been nothing but 10 pages of Deus Vult so far.

DEUS VULT!

 **► TheR3alCrusader** (Unverified Cape)  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
Come on people... Is it really that good to cheer on any conflict? I mean, I personally hate Geschellcraft (stupid demanding bastards) but these guys are getting savaged by a man who would do the same to anyone who says he is a heretic...

Do we really cheer for a guy like that?

 **► SteelMerida** (Moderator)  
Replied on January 21, 2000:  
Hey! Look at this TheR3alCrusade **r** :

[BIG ]

It says you are a heretic!  
DEUS VULT!

 **► ViktorVector**  
Replied on January 21, 2011:  
DEUS VULT!

 **End of Page.** **1** **,** **2** **,** **3** **...** **8** **,** **9** **, 10**

 **Private message from TinMother:**

 **ViktorVector:** Sorry to be a bother but it seems that some of the dates are saying that it is the year 2000. I thought it was 2011 **.  
TinMother:** Yes. Sorry for the inconvenience but the Dating system is a bit wonky since we are currently getting new servers. Thanks for reporting the issue regardless.

 **Topic: New LAZYBOY model coming out!  
In: Boards ► General Discussion**

 **I Am A Dragon** (Original Poster) (Verified Lung)  
Posted on January 20, 2011:

I can't even believe this!  
Look at this Beauty!

[ ]

I can't even wait to sit in it!

 **(Showing Page 1 of 1)**

 **► TinMother** (Moderator)  
Replied on January 30, 9998:  
Lung, This is the third time that you haven't posted the thread correctly.

Please look **here** for the thread posting guidelines.

 **► TheOneandONI** (Verified Cape)  
Replied on January 28, 2088:  
Why would you even make threads like this?

 **► Vista** (Wards ENE)  
Replied on January 28, 2088:  
Links pls

 **► ViktorVector**  
Replied on December 7, 2000:  
Oh man. I think you really need a Massager or something Lung. I do it for my wife and she never has back problems.

 **► I Am A Dragon** (Original Poster) (Verified Lung)  
Replied on December 7, 2000:  
I would but I don't really have a chance to go to look for someone to do my back. My transformation sequence takes forever to finish changing me back and it normally happens outside of business hours.

Thats why I love the LAZY BOY chairs so much. All the Aches and Pains dissapear.

 **► Reticulan** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on December 7, 2000:  
I guess it also hurts that there aren't many Asian Massagers eh?

 **► I Am A Dragon** (Original Poster) (Verified Lung)  
Replied on December 7, 2000:  
I am a Dragon... If they could help me then they would be Asian.

 **End of Page. 1**

 **Private message from GiftThatKeepsGiving:**

 **GiftThatKeepsGiving:** Honey, Why are you shitposting when you are supposed to be on lookout?  
 **ViktorVector:** Im bored of it. All these yellow suited guys keep dropping through the floor or dissappearing in a flash of light. How can I even track that!?  
That isn't even counting the traps...  
 **GiftThatKeepsGiving:** Traps?  
 **ViktorVector:** Yeah. Ive seen Sawblades, collapsing gas traps, Spike traps and Im completely sick of all the Trapdoors to incinerators.  
 **GiftThatKeepsGiving:** Oh.  
Keep Safe! I don't want you hurt one bit!  
 **ViktorVector:** Well if I do you can just heal me  
 **GiftThatKeepsGiving:** ...  
 **ViktorVector:** Don't Worry love, I'll be careful.  
 **GiftThatKeepsGiving:** Love You!  
 **ViktorVector:** Love You Too!


	7. Plotting 2,1

Enjoy the Unedited Writing!  
 **xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**  
 **28 January 2011. Brockton Bay, Boardwalk ( During Lunch hour please do not leave cakes and pies unattended)**

I was bored and in a city like Brockton Bay, I had no idea how that happened.  
But ever since I had left the hospital, going to school had been the most boring part of the day. Before my ordeal in the Locker, every class and free period was spent trying to avoid my tormentors, the three bullies that had managed to make Winslow high school into a personal hell on earth. It had all culminated in the Locker, where I had been locked in the small metal coffin with a non-significant amount of waste.

I could safely say that it was one of the worst moments of my life. The feelings of being trapped in that horrible place still haunted me, occasionally bringing me back to that moment when I entered the bus or looked at my old locker. Thankfully, I didn't remember how I had got so many cuts on my hands and arms because what I did remember still gave me the occasional nightmare. It had gotten even worse when they had told me that my cuts had been infected by a rare bacteria which had eaten a good number of the nerves in my hands and left arm. My reaction had been embarrassing. Despite the doctors practically begging me not to worry about it, I had still almost cried. The fear of never being able to use my hands again had infected my thoughts through the whole week with pained imaginings of how I could possibly even live my life without being able to even open my fingers.

My worries were all for naught however, as I had woken up that Saturday with my hands and arms fully useable and healed. I had been in complete shock when I had seen my hands that morning that the ambient sounds of gurgling and enthusiastic yelling had fallen into the background of my mind. It had seemed miraculous to me at the time but I guess it was only a matter of time until Panacea had seen to my injuries considering how serious they were. The recovery from I had to make from what my powers did to my mind had taken significantly more time but as I lazily directed a fly to do cartwheels in the air, I could say it was all worth it in retrospect.

I had _powers_ now...

The weak and worthless Taylor was gone, replaced by a Taylor who was objectively better than her tormentors and ready to show the Trio who they were messing with.

Okay, not really. When I had finally gone back to Winslow High, I had just wanted them to leave me alone as I silently hoped that my powers came with a confidence boost.

Expecting the worst, I had not been prepared for how much my life would have changed since that stay in hospital. Emma Barnes, my former best friend and chief tormentor, was actually avoiding me. At first, I had believed that she was just preparing for her next torment, waiting for a time when I wouldn't expect it. However, the promised pranks never came. Days passed without any interaction with her at all. The most she did was a rare annoyed stare at me which was normally followed by a sheepish glance to the floor.

Sophia, the muscle of the trio of tormentors, had tried to continue the physical side of the bullying campaign but since the incident where she had actually been called out by a teacher for tripping me down the stairs, she stuck to purposefully walking into me in the halls and half-heartedly trying to trip me as I went past. Were the teachers actually doing their jobs for once? Dad had said that "they became painfully aware of how flimsy their funding is" or whatever that meant. Her dad had given her a smile when she had said that and it hadn't exactly made her comfortable. It had looked like the smile a shark would give if it could brag about its latest meal and it didn't fit the kind but barely functioning dad she had known. It was a smile that she remembered on her parents back when mom was...

Madison had somehow undergone the weirdest change between all three of them. Like Emma, she had stopped actively trying to bully me but unlike Emma, she kept giving me these long looks, quickly looking away when she noticed that I was looking. One time that I had caught her staring was when she had just sort of dozed off while looking at me, her head resting on her hand and a dreamy expression on her face.

I felt kind of creeped out...

Though it was weird, I had to admit that high school without the bullying wasn't actually that bad. I had even begun to look forward to my classes now that I could actually pay attention in them. At least until I realised that most of them were excruciatingly boring. I loved the computer classes and with that I enjoyed Science and Maths. All three of those subjects gave me control over what I was doing, they never were biased against facts and it only helped that I was surprisingly good at them. In contrast, Art was exceptionally subjective, Same with Parahuman studies but with an added tinge of boredom and While I loved English, the teacher somehow managed to get so many things wrong and be so monotone that she could successfully sucked the life out of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

With my school work in the okay, but boring, and the Trio not even trying to bully me anymore, I found myself in the most precarious position a teenager can be...

I was bored.

I had only noticed just how on edge and how busy I was trying to either avoid or repay the bullying until it had stopped. No longer did I have the comfort of hours of planning routes between classes and writing half-baked revenge schemes in my journal. I had once duelled fate by giving Greg one of my proposed methods of revenge and had been subsequently crushed when he had pointed out several, glaring faults in my plan that would have spelled my doom should I have gone a head with it.

If that last thought had seemed dramatic, then it was because there was little else to do for a teenager on the boardwalk without money to buy the overpriced and possibly infested goods there. I had originally come here to see how many people I could track in my range as a sort of test. Did you know that there are at least a dozen insects living on you at all times in the day? And that number only increased in the more populated areas?

So, with that in mind, it turns out that bug control was an extremely scary power considering that the limit to the number of people I could track stopped at All of Them. Well, all of the people in the range of about two blocks but that was still pretty terrifying to someone who had thought about the sheer flexibility of such a power. It was scary how close I was to actually considering my power completely useless, If the bullying hadn't stopped and let me think about what I could do then I just knew that I would be moping about how "weak" my power was.

Bug Control was significantly different from being Alexandria after all. While she could only attack one villain at a time, I could attack as many as I had bugs to attack them with, as ineffective as those attacks may be. Of course, in Brockton Bay it didn't stop there. What kind of weird things could my power control that were native here? Was I limited to Pie Bugs as one very surprised baker had discovered or did my power encompass all invertebrates like the dreaded cake slime? I unfortunately had my answer for that as I couldn't feel any of the traumatic abominations in my range and there were always one or two lurking around the boardwalk.  
That didn't stop me from controlling pretty much every other invertebrate around however.  
Masters were scary for a reason I suppose...

So, as a superpowered teenage Master, I was attempting to alleviate my boredom by playing a guessing game where I would try to figure out who a person was by just what I felt with my bugs.

Hmm. I could feel a heavy, slippery thing over a warm fabric that was slightly damp. There was a cold, hard rectangular shape between the two layers. The thing that my bugs were sitting on also felt quite large. Turning towards the feeling, my suspicions were proven correct as I saw an enforcer, one of the boardwalk security guards, wearing a black leather jacket with a black shirt, sweating in the hot sun as he stood guard near a restaurant.  
It was a good attempt at being intimidating but in the end, the fact the poor man was trying to discretely wipe the sweat off his face while he glared at people made it more comical than anything.

My attention was drawn to another bunch of my bugs as I tried to guess who another person was. I could feel something light and cool which happened to be rather thin as well. Below that were what I knew to be pants whose material felt quite rough. Surprisingly the person's skin didn't feel like it was actually there, rather it felt like my insects were just barely touching it. What I could tell was that the figure had some interesting and large bu...

I could feel my face go red as I realized what I had unconsciously been feeling. A quick glance told me that my fears were right and I had been unconsciously feeling up a good-looking blonde girl who was chatting enthusiastically to a disinterested brunette. My face only increased its shade of red when I noticed that the girl did indeed have significantly more... Assets than I did.  
It made me feel a bit jealous.

It was then that the brunette caught me absently staring at her friend and gave me a death glare that sent chills down muscles that I didn't even know that I had. Turning away quickly, I tried to ignore the scary brown-haired girl and her lucky blonde friend.

If the stare of unrelenting torment had sent my mind racing, then the next person that my bugs felt made my mind stop in confusion. It felt like the whole body except the head was covered by some sort of fabric with some slippery material over his legs. Above all that was a... Greatcoat?  
Turning towards the oddity, I was greeted by one of the most puzzling sights that I've seen. It was a man, covered in a large, brown trenchcoat with a yellow jumpsuit being clearly seen underneath. The man had green, rubber boots and a pair of sunglasses partnered with a black fedora rested ontop of his head. By itself, it wasn't that weird by itself as Brockton Bay was the cape capital of the US. It wasn't hard to imagine that he could have been a new cape in costume.

No, the weird thing was that there were two more, identically dressed men walking next to him and no one seemed to notice. It was all I could do to stare as three, obviously suspicious men moved through the crowd. Was I really the only one who could see them? My question was soon answred as a small boy who was running with what appeared to be his sister, ran into one of the men's legs and toppled him.  
"Sorry Mister!" the boy yelled as he continued on, oblivious to the prone, groaning man on the floor.  
So it wasn't some sort of invisibility and everyone but me found them simply ordinary?

My increduility was such that I barely reacted as the fallen man's fellow picked him up and said something that got my brain turning.  
"Come on, We are going to be late." he said as he brushed his partner off and moved on.

They were going to be late?  
I wresteled with indecision for a moment. Was it really my business to interfere with what they were doing? What if they hurt someone? Could my inaction be justified then?  
As I thought back to my childhood, the awe I would feel when I saw heroes like Armsmaster and Alexandria and the desire to help people like they did.

A desire that never truly went away.

Filling with resolve, I started following them. With my power, I could keep an eye on them without standing out like half of those "spy" people on the TV. If they were just suspicious bystanders, then no one would be any the wiser to my spying but if they were up to no good...

Well, I always wanted to be a hero...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **Surprisingly dark section of a Boardwalk allyway.**

Robbie could describe himself as slightly annoyed as he stood in an isolated . One could say that it was something very specific causing that annoyance.  
Three specific things  
"Are you, a real minion?" He asked the three trainee minions in front of him. Robbie, having been one of the few returning minions to the newly awakened Evil Orginisation, had been given the job of training some of the new minions.  
It was an exercise in frustration.

The new minions knew nothing about actually being a part of an Evil Organisation. Being a minion meant hard work, dedication and occasionally creativity or innovation. Many of the new hires had believed that they would do nothing all day and occasionally get yelled at by their boss like most, substandard villain organisations.  
Robbie could see a reason why this had happened. Robbie had become a minion when there were no gangs and organisations like The Brokers were the standard to how a villain run his business. Even Lustrum's group, who had been closer to an angry protest, had their annual bake sale.

Now it was all chaos and confusion when it came to Villains. He had heard that Lung was trying to push the ABB to the Yakuza model of business but he was by far the minority .Funnily enough, that was why he liked the three new minions who were standing in front of him. They were his... Dream team so to speak. Their work ethic was amazing.  
Their knowledge and experience? Abyssmal.

"Technically, nah." Bobby honestly replied, validating Robbie's respect for the trio. Robbie could actually see the answer in the extremely suspicious trenchcoats that the minions had thrown over their jumpsuits to disguise themselves through the boardwalk crowds. They were just lucky that the crowd was too busy being entertained by the Boardwalk itself in order to notice the obvious Evil doers in their midst. Robbie, in contrast, had simply stuck an easily removable logo of the Medhall company to his jumpsuit to avoid suspicion.  
Corporate Evil was more socially acceptable than World Domination Evil after all.

"Okay. Have you ever fought a real superhero?"  
His answer was a chorus of shaking heads.

"Have you ever used a proper disguise?" Robbie asked the suspiciously dressed trio hesitantly.  
He appreciated the unanimous negative even when the answer was painfully obvious.  
"Alright! It's clear to me that I will need to teach you how to be... Minions!" Robbie loudly proclaimed as he reached towards his back pocket which contained his POCKET (Personal Obtuse Collection and Keepsake Electronic Translocator) which contained a Saxophone that Robbie had put in there for motivational purposes. As he was about to begin the motivational song that he had practised, Bobby raised his hand.

"Sigh. Yes?" Robbie said as he lowered the saxophone.  
"Umm, how will you go about doing that?"  
Robbie felt slight disappointment at the question.  
"Didn't you guys get the email?"  
"Email?" Floppy asked and Robbie sighed at the looks of confusion that the three trainees gave each other.  
"You never gave your contact details to G-Bot, didn't you?"  
"Gee Bo-?"  
"Never mind! Today there are three heroes that do their morning exercises around the Boardwalk. We are going to try to catch them and you will learn how to be a proper minion as we do it. Now come along!"  
Robbie proclaimed and started to walk away.  
"Um, what about that song you were about to play?"

Robbie looked at the saxophone in his hand. After a second of contemplation, Robbie put the saxophone back into his POCKET.  
"No. The Setup for it is long gone. Now listen closely!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **Less Dark section of the alleyway.**

When I had found the suspicious men's destination, I had asked myself why they were meeting with what seemed to be an ordinary Medhall worker. However, as I listened to them with my bugs, a skill I had picked up while I was bored, I quickly realised that it was only an ingenious disguise and that he was actually their boss and that they were all "minions" or whatever that meant.

That was unimportant compared to what they were planning.

They were planning to actually capture heroes. People who risked their lives to protect the city.

I couldn't let that happen but I couldn't let them know it was me. My critical lack of a costume was extremely bad if they noticed a stick thin teenage girl following them.  
Regardless, I felt a smile form on my face as I called on nearby insects. With my power and some creativity, they never needed to know that I was there.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **Brightly lit allyway.**

"So, Boss. What's all this?" A trainee asked Robbie, gesturing to the vaguely coil like machine that sat in the middle of the space. Robbie had been so focused on some last minute wiring that he hadn't taken note of who had actually spoken.

"This, dear Trainee, is a Temporal Elongator because our first target is none other than the extremely quick Velocity!"  
Bobby rubbed the top of his head in confusion, having ditched the trenchcoat outfit and glasses after the boss had given him and the other two trainees easily removable logos.  
"I'm confused. Doesn't Velocity go faster than, like, a bullet?"  
Robbie stared at Bobby as though he decided to throw non-combustible lemons at houses.  
"Yes but to do so he compresses his own space-time. That is why the Temporal Elongator is pointing towards the street," Robbie gestured to the busy street just past the entrance of the allyway. "The Elongator will uncompress Velocity's time and leave him moving slower than a snail! Which is perfect for the specially disguised cage to trap the powerless hero!" Robbie proclaimed as he pointed to a suspiciously large file cabinet that was hanging over the street.

"Now be careful, any tampering with the coils could trigger the trap early with disasterous results as we dont have enough time to hang the cage up again. Im going to look out for our hapless hero haha!" Robbie let out a devious laugh walked into the street.  
"Oh yes. Please grab all these loose cables. They could probably trip someone." Robbie gestured to the piles of cables by the almost eldritch device.

With a small groan, the trio of trainees started cleaning up as the full minion watched out for their helpless, superpowered prey.

Xxxxxxxxx

I had to admit, if the weird machine worked then their plan was amazingly clever. I was glad that I had been following them with my bugs because it seemed the "senior minion" had given the other three ingenious disguises which let them blend into the crowd effortlessly. Through my bugs, I had also heard my plan but my bugs couldn't stop the pang of jealousy that cut into my chest when I realised that it wss actually a good plan that even Greg would probably not find fault with.

Thankfully for Velocity, after watching the minions assemble the machine, I saw a glaring fault...  
The machine used a lot of coils and wires, meaning that it used a lot of electro magnets.

And thankfully, there was enough appropriate scrap around me to make my own...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Having almost finished cleaning up his pile of loose wires and cables, Richard "Floppy" Buchard looked up at the rapid clicks against the pavement and then against something metal. It almost sounded like... Scuttling?  
Looking up, Floppy saw one of the weirdest sights in his life. It was a crab that was standing ontop of the Boss' machine and it held something that literally looked like pieces of scrap wrapped around each other into the shape of a horseshoe magnet. With a crablike screech, the crab stabbed the scrap magnet into one of the coils.

Floppy was then blinded by a flash of light even as he heard a yelp from the entrance to the alleyway.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
Velocity, or rather Robin to his friends, had come across an interesting sight on his morning run. Many co-workers lamented that he would be just as fast without his morning exercises but he figured they didnt know the benefits of healthy living.  
Besides, if he didn't exercise then he wouldn't have seen the excellent art that someone had built in one of the alleyways...  
It was a wax art exhibit depicting a more chaotic time in Brockton Bay. Three figures in yellow jumpsuits stood over a weird sculpture of a tinkertech device. While he wasn't into art, he appreciated how lifelike they looked even if there were... inconsistancies.  
Velocity had no idea why the jumpsuits had the Medhall logo on them or what the significance of the strangely victorious Crab was.

Either way, he didn't want to interfere with an exhibit someone had obviously put a lot of work into so he continued his morning run, moving too quickly to hear the muffled curses coming from the suspiciously large file cabinet.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **Captain's Hill Park, Unremarkable stretch of Park footpath.**

"Alright! That didn't exactly go to plan but we still have two more heroes to try to catch. Yes, I will explain the plan now." Robbie quickly said, cutting off Bobby as he lifted his hand to ask a question.  
Robbie gestured to the park around them.  
"As you are aware, This specific park is the only park in Brockton Bay. What you probably didn't know is that this specific foot path is used by one person at a specific time, everyday."  
"Oh! Oh! Me!"  
"Yes, Richard?" Robbie directed "floppy" to speak.  
"Is it... Director Piggot?"

The question left the group giving Richard a blank stare.  
"What? She needs it..."  
"Actually she is in pretty good shape." Robbie corrected.

 _Missy considered herself fit. She exercised every morning, ran patrols and ate healthily, even if she wasn't as much of a health nut that Dennis sometimes was. All of that, combined with her young age and unconcious use of her power, meant that she was one of the fastest in the Wards._  
 _Thus when Dennis had dared her to join the PRT officers in their morning run with him, she accepted without hesitation at the chance to show Dennis that stopping time shenanigans was no replacement for good exercise. It also helped that Gallant also worked out with the PRT._

 _It was there that she realised that there was one big difference between the PRT and the Wards._  
 _The PRT had way more endurance..._

 _That was why she was almost hyperventilating as she dripped with sweat on the benches in the PRT gym. She had gone into this morning thinking that there were only going to be two laps around the gym..._  
 _She had to stop at four laps around the expansive room._  
 _Gallant had to stop on his sixth lap._  
 _Clockblocker, he stopped on his third._  
 _The PRT Officers had yet to stop._

 _They were tired, visibly sweating and obviously pushing themselves on their thirteenth lap._  
 _All except one..._

 _Running ahead of all of the PRT, with nary a drop of sweat on her head, was Director Emily Piggot._

 _The Heavyset woman had abandoned her usual office suit for a large set of athletics clothes that seemed to fit her perfectly and was jogging around the gym as though she was several times thinner than she was. In fact, she ran better than that because the second best runner in the PRT building, ironically the Director's secretary, was lagging considerably behind the Director and her sweat soaken, brown ponytail was in sheer contrast to the Director's immaculate pixie cut._

 _"Come on people! Only three more laps to go before we move to squats!" Emily shouted to the officers behind her and they collectively responded with an exhausted groan._  
 _Missy was so enraptured with watching the Olympic Director and her own struggle to breathe that she almost didn't notice a gasping Dennis take a seat next to her._  
 _It took him a moment but he managed to struggle to say one word..._  
 _"Bull-*gasp*-shit."_

"Fair enough." Richard admitted.  
"The answer was actually Armsmaster," Robbie informed the trio. "And I have it on good authority that he uses leg weights in order to have, the most efficient exercise possible. That is where this comes in!" Robbie gestured to the box-like device hidden behind a bush.  
"This device, with the help of small and inconspicuous beacons, will make a specific section of the footpath act like quicksand. And as Armsmaster struggles to free himself from the trap, we can capture the helpless hero!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Once again, I was amazed by the strength of Ants as I directed the local hives to move the beacons to new positions. To the Minion's credit, the device beacons were virtually invisible to the human eye. Luckily for me, said beacons were glaringly obvious to insects. As I subverted their latest capture attempt, I couldn't help but feel dissappointed. I was doing something no one else could do, I was directing my insects to bring ruin to my enemies in secret! To anyone else, It would have been scary and awesome...

But for me? I picked up a thing and moved it somewhere else.

The effort in foiling the latest plan was practically trivial and that left me unsatisfied. Even though it was challenging, I had surprisingly enjoyed making the impromptu magnet and my success had been dependant on how well I had made it and not if I could control crabs.

Something told me that I would have enjoyed building some sort of miniture RC car to move the beacons...  
Either way, hopefully this was going to work, as unsatisfying as it was.

Xxxxxxcxx

"Why are we following these people?" Brian asked with a sigh.  
That reminded Lisa once again that Brian couldn't see what she saw.  
To him, he only saw four Medhall employees messing around in the park and to her shame, without her power, she would have believed that as well.  
 _Wants to help conquer the world._  
That was what her power had told her when she had focused on one of the suspicious employees and without that first step, she wouldn't have found out about machines that destroyed the laws of physics but weren't Tinkertech, about the revival of an organisation that had been missing for over a decade, the plan to catch heroes while they exercise and the bug controller that had hidden herself in a tree, filling out a crossword as her exoskeletal minions foiled the latest plot.

It was something that threatened to give her a Thinker headache if she tried to imagine the series of events that would have got everything to this point.  
And it was glorious entertainment.

"Come on, sourface. Where's your sense of adventure?" Lisa grinned at her reluctant companion.  
Brian rolled his eyes.  
"At least promise me that this isnt going to take too long."  
Lisa turned back to the scene without responding, this was too entertaining to ignore and this was one of the few things that her power couldn't give her the answer to like why people were stupid or why kids liked the taste of that Earth Aleph cereal, Cinnimon Toast Crunch.

She simply wanted to see how this played out and Brian let out a sigh as he deduced her intention.  
Besides, Bug girl was interesting but she needed to see more before she was sure.

Xxxxxxxxxx  
As Colin ran down the park path, he kept his attention on the path ahead of him.  
He didn't stop to ask what the blond haired girl was laughing at.  
He didn't look at the brown-haired girl that seemed to be struggling with a crossword.  
He didn't examine the poorly hidden Tinker device.  
And he didn't stop to stare at the four Medhall employees in yellow jumpsuits that were trying to climb out of liquid ground.  
Because that was exactly what the AI that ran the world wanted.

If he had a choice in the matter, he would resist the AI's conspiracy to prevent his daily morning exercise, which was clearly a Smiurgh plot, at all had been tons of evidence such as his digital alarms waking him up later than when he had set them (Only the digital ones) and how meetings would be mysteriously scheduled in the time for his morning exercise.

He wished he could share the Truth with Dragon but there was a fear that she had been comprimised by the AI.  
"Don't you think you should take a break from such an intense workout occasionally?" She had asked him. "I have this interesting efficency problem that we could solve together..."

As tempting as that was, it would be playing into the AI's Plan and Colin feared for Dragon's saftey if she learned the truth.  
So Colin ran on, in defiance of logic and circuits.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"No. I don't want to hear it." Robbie interrupted the trainee trio as he emptied his boot of liquified grass.  
He then took out a device from his POCKET. Something that looked like a hi-tech Landmine.  
"Let's try something else..."

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Mouse Protector had always enjoyed watching people's faces as she jogged in her costume. Some people enjoyed the anonymity that they felt out of costume or only saw their cape personas as a job or duty that they had to fulfill, thus leaving their costumes at home when they were on duty. Mouse felt diferently, however, because as the years went past the times when she had been in costume felt like the real her while mild mannered Jessamine Calhoun had progressively felt like the fake persona.  
That was why the first time she had been forced to exercise in her costume, because of a freak explosion at her favorite laundromat, she had instantly loved it.

So when the time had come to buy more exercise clothes, she had bought spare costumes instead.

Ironically, jogging around as Mouse Protector had been surprisingly lonely. None of her close hero friends had shared her feelings about their cape personalities and those who jogged in the morning had decided to keep to exercise shorts and casual wear rather than costumes.  
That obviously meant that Mouse Protector had no one to run with in the mornings and unfortunately being an independant cape meant that there were very few people who were comfortable with sharing their Identity with her. The problem had only gotten worse when she had roamed into Brockton Bay, Armsmaster having "engaged in aggressive negotiations" to get her promise to not harass his team or the Wards into joining her on any "antics" she may start.  
 _Me? Start Antics?_ Mouse Protector thought to herself. There was no way that she started antics…  
Well… She was involved in plenty of them but none of them were her fault, honest.

 _Stupid Armsmaster with his stupid thousand uses halberd._

That was why she was ecstatic to find that Miss Militia, her old friend, had also taken to jogging in her costume and wasn't against her joining her for a morning run.  
...It might have been because it had taken exactly seventy two times of asking her in order for her to answer yes, but that probably wasn't important.

"So that's why you don't train with the PRT anymore?" Mouse asked Militia as they passed an entrance to Captain's Hill Park.  
"You have no idea how punishing the director's workout is…" Miss Militia shook her head as she said that, the tail of her trademark scarf flapping against the back of her custom exercise costume. Mouse Protector felt smug at the fact that her costume had built in cooling and she didn't need a lighter version to exercise in. It also kept the sun out of her eyes which was nice.

Mouse Protector leaped onto a nearby stone bench, foot placed onto the back rest of the bemch as she adopted a heroic pose.  
"Why, I would be glad to take the challenge! I, Mouse Protector, will defeat the dreaded Director at her own game! I will outrun, outjog and outlap the esteemed Director and free my fellow heroes from her stamina predations." Mouse Protector loudly proclaimed, drawing quite a few stares and one or two photos.  
"Mouse, really? You're making a scene and we need to complete our run." Miss Militia had gone into full lecture mode. Mouse protector smiled under her mask at the familiar combination of a serious tone but amusement in her olive-skinned brow that told Mouse that Miss Militia was smiling under her mask.  
 _I'm glad I managed to do that. You haven't been smiling enough these days, Hannah._

Mouse hopped off the bench, landing in a heroic manner.  
"Then lead on, fellow Hero!" She yelled. With only a shake of her head, Miss Militia started jogging again, followed closely by Mouse Protector.

"So why are you here in Brockton Bay?" Miss Militia asked after a few seconds. "I thought you were living in New York."  
"I was, but it was getting to boring there. All of the villains were so serious there. None of them had a sense of humor and the number of them who actually tried to not kill people was less than the fingers on my hand." Mouse sighed wistfully. It wasn't that hard to see why they would do that considering who led the New York Protectorate but it meant that all the fights were serious and the fun and spectacle was at an all time low. "I used to get all my fun out of irritating Ravager but even she stopped reacting to my heroic antics. So, with an agreement from Chevalier to check on you guys, I came to Brockton Bay to seek heroic adventure and Chevalier shot Ravager into the Hudson with his cannon."

It took Militia a moment to think of what to say.  
"Isn't Chevalier in Philadelphia?"  
"Normally yes, but he was in town to visit his niece and he offered to help."  
"That's good. I was worried that Myrradin was going to have to lose his Friendly Game Night considering it was Chevalier who always made the arrangements,"  
 _If by Friendly, you meant fleacing everyone who was ignorant about the 'games' then you are right_. Mouse though to herself.

"Well-"  
CLICK  
CRAAAAACK

With no warning, a bolt of blue lighting had erupted where Mouse Protector had been standing and when it had dissapated, she was no where to be seen.

It was all Miss Militia could do to stare dumbfounded at the spot her friend had been as four Medhall workers ran down the street, chanting 'We are Number One' as they did so,.  
 _Well, Brockton Bay isn't going to be boring for a while…_

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **SSBE Armoury room 133342**

It took Mouse Protector a second to realise that she wasn't where she had been before and had, infact, been teleported. Even though t seemed that momentum had been conserved, she totally didn't crash into the transparent wall of the cell in her moment of confusion. No, the pain on her face was completely unrelated.

After massaging the back of her neck that totally wasn't bent on impact with the cell wall, she took a moment to look around.  
And she almost let out a squee.

The Cell itself was not that special, being simple glass walls held together by grey steel with a barred door, but her attention was on what was beyond. The room beyond had a stark white tiled floor with blue wall paneling. Across from her was another cell, empty this time, but at the edge of the room, she could see someone in a yellow jumpsuit and white hardhat working at some sort of holographic computer.  
All around him was racks for weapons of all kinds, from small pistols to military grade rifles to some sort of tinkertech weaponry.  
Her attention, however, was dominated by the large logo that had been painted onto the wall above the computer.

It was a golden, stylized globe on a black background.  
It was the Logo of the Evil Organisation.

That realisation had shocked, surprised and brought out the inner fangirl inside Jessamine.  
As a Ward, she had heard of everything that the Evil Organisation had gotten up to. In a world of Super villains, it was Ironic that the one organisation that hadn't been led by a Parahuman had acted like that they actually were from a comic book. It had enamoured her younger self so much that she had happily spent her hard earned pocket money and extreme effort on their merchandise from several fan sites where she would use them to play mock battles with her own action figure.

In a world of seriousness and in contrast to the villains that her old team used to face, the Evil Organisation had seemed almost fun to fight and many a daydream involving her, death rays, heroic puns and just general "cops and robbers" antics that she wished that most of the villains tried to play at.  
She tried compensating for her villains seriousness, but it often wasn't enjoyable and the Protectorate attempting to force her to match their temperament for the sake of PR had caused her to go Independent.  
When the Evil Organisation had retired, she had resigned herself to a career of super serious villains and Jessamine having to 'ham it up' at every opportunity to keep herself from going crazy.

Now the Organisation was back, she had been 'kidnapped' by them, and they were likely to get up to nefarious plans.  
 _Oh no_ … She was too excited, there was no way she was going to be able to play Mouse Protector, the cool and collected Hero of Justice when she was fangirling out as Jessamine.

"This is going to be so much fun! Sorry…"  
She silently apologised as she used her power to teleport back to her friend, Hannah. She needed time to prepare for such a possibly amazing confronatation.

Jerrod Williams, to his credit, looked around for where the voice had come from but when he couldn't find the speaker, he went back to watching the cameras.  
And his ongoing game of minesweeper in the corner of the screen.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
Miss Militia was surprised when her friend Jessamine suddenly appeared next to her and leapt onto her, trapping her in a tight hug and pressing her Mouse Protector mask into her shoulder.  
"Wha!"  
"IMSOGLADTHATICAMEHEREITSGOINGTOBESOMUCHFUNANDIMFINALLYGOINGTOBETHEHEROIALWAYSWANTEDTOBEIMSOHAPPYRIGHTNOW!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
I just couldn't believe that they managed to get one.  
The moment that I was confident and decided to relax for a moment, the minions bring out some sort of simple to use teleportation mine and actually manage to capture Mouse Protector of all people.  
Not even my excitement of seeing her in the bay and reappear almost immediately after being 'caught' was enough to quell my sense of self-disappointment. I had gotten careless and if it had been Miss Militia who had stood on that mine then they would've had a captive hero that they could use in all sorts of nefarious plots.  
There were dozens that she could think of and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

I ran a hand through my black curly hair, one of the only things that i had pride in for my appearance, and thought about what I could have done to prevent this.

It frustrated me that the answer was actually "nothing".

If I had been in a worse place, I would have blamed myself for somehow only being one person but realistically, I couldn't do much. If more people had been with me, we probably would have been able to immediately spot the new invention that was pulled out of literally nowhere and maybe stop it.

A single teenager doing a crossword as she waited for the construction of the next elaborate device couldn't catch that.

My self-disappointment turned to determination as I looked for solutions. It was obvious that whatever organisation these people worked for was dangerous if they could try to capture heroes with a variety of Tinkertech devices and I knew that I couldn't stand to leave them alone to pull off any nefarious schemes.

Unfortunately, that meant that I'd need people, People other than Greg of course, that could help with legwork and the workload of foiling these schemes.  
As much as I hated the term, I'd need minions of my own to counter these minions.

My mental deliberation on how to recruit reliable people was interrupted as a tall blond girl came into my vision and held her hand out to me.  
"Hello! My name is Lisa and I would like to volunteer my team to become your new min… Henchmen. Definitely henchmen."

"What Are you doing Lisa!" An a good looking African american teen asked Lisa as he rushed behind her.  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 _What am I doing?_ Lisa asked herself as she watched the scariest girl she had ever seen shake her hand with a befuddled expression on her face.

Her power had told her what this skinny teenage girl could do as evidenced from the thinker headache that she was hiding behind her smile. Her instincts were screaming at her to leave Brockton Bay before this skinny girl tore it apart in her conflict with the Evil Organisation and any other evil she would see.

"I'm… Taylor. And do you really mean it?"  
But 'Taylor' was powerful and power came with opportunities.  
"Yes, I am. Not sure about my teammate here but you've got me!" She said to the scariest person she had ever known.  
And who knows, maybe she was enough to help her with her problems.  
 _Maybe she is enough to help me get free..._  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
 **SSBE Plotting Room. (Base now suitable for all Scheming. Keep Plotting to dedicated rooms please.)**  
"So as you can see, with Kaiser being preoccupied with his annual Stormfront Bake sale, Lung has taken the opportunity to spread his influence by loosening the restrictions on his casinos with another couple's night. Specifically in these casinos where it will be easy to attract customers" Kurt expalined as he pointed to a map of Brockton Bay, pointing at three ABB casinos which were close to the suburbs, Winslow High School and the local Noodle shop.

"Hmm, The E88 working to maintain good PR and the ABB is becoming a community based Crime organisation," Lacy, who was sitting on a chair across the table from her husband, commented with a thoughtful expression. "Well, I did Nazi that coming."

The silence was deafening as Alan, Kurt, GBot through a camera, and Danny stared at her.  
"It wasn't that bad was it?"

Danny shook his head looking back at the world map he was brooding at, is caped suit looking like something that Cobra Commander would wear from that old kids show.  
In Lacy's opinion, it was rather appropriate..  
"It's better than you making dentistry jokes when you were around the teeth." Danny replied  
Lacy brightened up.  
"Not by much though."  
Lacy deflated.

Danny turned to Alan who was sitting neatly in his custom armchair,  
"How's the recruitment campaign coming?" He asked the seated Lawyer.  
Alan sighed.  
"It's stalled. While the Online Videos were a good idea and have brought several new recruits, our views have stagnated and our subscriptions have been steady at five hundred for six days now."  
Danny leaned against the table.  
"How is it that someone like Void Cowboy can get thousands of subscriptions for playing such an old game like Space Opera and we don't?" Lacy asked, confusion evident on her face.  
"Despite it's age, Space Opera is extremely popular with fans of the RPG genre and is still massively played today." GBot explained, using the room's speakers.  
"It's because they don't believe we are actually back…" Danny said quietly.

"Dan?" Kurt piped up, looking at his friend past his trademark shades.  
"It's true. After we retired, the idea of an Evil Genius became a legend, a story and an internet meme. We need to do a lot more to let the world know that we are back." Danny said, gesturing to the World map on the wall.  
"What to do suppose, Sir?" GBot asked politely.  
"We need an entrance that will distinguish us from the rest of the Villain organisations, something to show that we are the real deal. Attacking the forces of Justice would make us seem like a normal villain group, attacking big villains would do the same. All of it has been done countless times before."  
"So what can we do to show them that we are actually going to conquer the world?" Kurt asked. "While amusing, being treated like an organised Empire 88 would get old quickly."

Danny turned dramatically towards the room, and sized up the room from behind his glasses which reflected the light in the room, giving him an even more sinister appearance.  
"We are going to do something that even the triumvirate couldn't do. We are going to prove to the world that we are the biggest threat that they have ever faced." Danny proclaimed, voice getting more dramatic with every sentence.  
Gentlemen, Lacy, We are going to defeat an existential threat to mankind. We are going to defeat Leviathan!"

The room was silent.  
"Well, I hope you have a plan Dan." Lacy said after a while."  
"As a matter of fact, I do." answered the Evil Genius. Danny removed a notebook from his pocket and threw it on the table between the Betrothed Duo. "Kurt, Lacy, You two are in charge of getting what I need for the plan."  
Kurt picked up the book and started reading.  
"Diamond, Laser transmitter... Canary… Okay, this is doable."  
"Of course, you have the Organisation at your disposal." Danny turned to Alan. "Alan, prepare Evil Corp for activation. The sooner that we have a 'public' presence the better. This includes the Copyright law loopholes."  
Alan let out a groan at the prospect of sifting through tons copyright laws.  
"GBot! Prepare the Media campaign. I want everyone to see our victory!"  
"What will you be doing, If I may ask sir?"

Danny stopped as he dramatically stopped as he left the room.  
"Of course GBot. The plan requires Experimentation to work correctly and there IS tons of SCIENCE to do!" Danny proclaimed.

"Now, Let's prepare to defeat a Fish Monster!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


	8. Plotting 2,2

**7 MONTHS! 7 MONTHS!**

 **[Oh MAH God . jpg ]  
**

 **WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE!?**

Hope you enjoy the writing!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One does not simply find a specific diamond in the world and unfortunately for Kurt and Lacey, Danny was very specific about the things he needed.

And even more unfortunately, He wanted some really hard to acquire things…

A salt crystal from a specific University lab at Harvard? Easy.

A prototype Laser cannon from the Chinese military? Lacey had done more complicated infiltrations while drunk.

Stealing a specific page from a book of old songs that was in the monster-filled Ellisburg? Kurt's morning exercise routine was more strenuous.

…

Stealing the 2053rd diamond on the Imperial State Crown of the Crown Jewels in the tower of London?

That was difficult…

That was also why Kurt, clad in his signature uniform, and Lacey, in an almost exact replica uniform of the Queen's Guard, were being chased up the tower of London.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Honey… *pant* Why didn't. You. Stop. At. Complimenting. His. Work. Ethic? *Gasp*."

Kurt turned towards his exhausted wife as they ran up the steps, perfectly climbing the steps backwards. His wife in contrast was doing her best impression of doing a flopping fish while keeping pace with her husband.

"Oh you know… I just had to give them at least some credit to how well they are guarding this tower. That they did all the proper background checks and didn't let their **feelings** get in the way. Yessir, no pretty woman was getting past them…" Kurt said, the smile on his face that somehow did not indicate joy.

"Is this about that one student?" She panted, her mind turning to the student she had seduced at Harvard by disguising as his childhood crush to get at the salt crystal lab. "I didn't do anything, Kurt!"

"Oh, didn't you? You did seem really eager to 'show him what he had been missing' and 'what you had been feeling since freshman year'"

"I had to be!" Lacey pleaded as she jumped up a few more steps, wary of the British yelling coming lower down the tower's steps. "That kid was so repressed that I was sure that he hadn't noticed any of the normal advances that work ninety percent of the time! It was super awkward..."

Kurt tilted his head in thought while crossing his arms, an impressive feat considering that his backwards flight up the steps remained constant.

"Yeah, he did seem to be kind of thick. Ehh, I'm not really blaming you for that anyway. What I **am** blaming you for is stealing the Jammie Dodgers I had bought this morning."

Lacey took a moment to stare at her husband before continuing.

"But they were delicious! You can't expect me not to take some!"

"You took all of them! Out of a pack of fifty! You do the same thing when I steal your tea."

"Okay. Good point."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The three hundred kilogram door to the vault slammed shut as Kurt closed it behind him.

"Okay, Honey, Go find the diamond that Dan needs and I'll hold the door closed."

There was a distinct bang on the other side of the door as it shifted. Jumping to it, Kurt held the vault door closed even as he felt several more impacts hit the door.

"Wow. The Royal lances pack a real punch. I'm kind of wishing that I hadn't broken the lock getting in here. Hey Honey? How are you doing finding that diamond?"

…

"Honey?"

"Kurt! Look!"

Turning his gaze away from the rapidly crumbling vault door, and turned to look at his wife who was standing in the center of the large vault. It took his brain a second to realise that, instead of the case containing the crown jewels being the only thing in the room, the vault itself was filled with gold.

Gold stamped with the symbol of Geschellcraft.

"Oh shit…"

Lacey looked back at her husband.

"Do you think that this is why the guards outside have Tinkertech guns?" Lacey asked, a worried expression on her face as she clearly thought what her husband was thinking.

"Lets find that diamond before the Guard come for their looted Nazi gold."

"Agreed"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 **30 MINUTES LATER.**

"Hurry up, honey!" Kurt yelled as yet another impact hit the terribly abused Vault door. By now, the door had lost its shape, having been partially melted and warped by repeated thermal lance blasts from the guard on the other side..

"Don't rush me! I'll lose count again!" Lacey yelled from across the room.

"Just take the whole crown!"

"You know we can't do that! The room will be filled with robot bulldogs and I don't want robo bite marks again! Just give me a little more time!"

"I am literally the only reason this slab of metal is still in the doorway!:

"I know,dear! You're doing great!"

Kurt grumbled as he shifted his grip on the destroyed door. Lacey was definitely taking her time but he guessed it was better than going back to Danny with the wrong diamond.

 _I guess it's lucky that they only shoot one at a time!_ Kurt thought to himself.

"What in God's name are you doing?" Kurt heard a soft, italin accented voice from the other side of the door.

"We're trying to break down the door, sir!" said a distinctly British voice.

"Well, why are you firing one at a time?"

"We're trying to be sporting, sir!"

"What the Hell? All of you, fire all at once!"

"Lacey!" Kurt yelled to his wife.

"3"

"Yes?"

"2"

"We're about to have company!"

"1"

With a sudden burst of sound and heat, Kurt and the door went flying across the vault. Lacey heard the a sharp thud as Kurt collided with the vault wall and an even deeper thud when the door smashed into the wall, right on top of Kurt.

"YES!" Lacey yelled as she found the correct diamond, plucking it from the crown with a swipe.

The room was silent except for both her husband and the Vault door falling to the ground, disturbing a particularly large pile of gold

"Shit…" As what her husband had shouted to her finally made its way into her comprehension.

 _Okay,_ She thought. _Kurt will be back up in a minute or so, spinal injuries always took the longest to heal, so all I need to do is delay the guards until then._

As she turned towards the smoke filled Vault entrance, she felt hundreds of different deceptions run through her mind, hoping that just one could work.

All of those plans disappeared as she saw who had walked in with the Royal Guard…

The armour was different from how she remembered, it was thicker and definitely more mechanised than it had been twenty years ago. It was definitely bulkier than it had been, probably to accommodate thicker armour and probably some sort of computer system based on how the T-shaped visor on his cylindrical helmet emitted a blue light. The rest sent pangs of nostalgia through her. It was still coloured red and white, a large red cross clearly visible on the armour and a flowing white cape connected to the armour's shoulders.

"Well. Look what we have here…" Crusader drawled out, his thick italian accent punctuating every word. "It is the fairer half of the pair of thevies with the blasphemous name. Likely working for the blasphemous genius, who seeks to steal God's domain from him."

Lacey blanched at the subtle aggression in Crusader's words. It wasn't their fault that the media called them that!

"Now look, Fernando." Lacy's voice almost wavered as she took a small step away from the hulking Knight. "It wasn't our idea to be called Adam and Ev-"

Lacey squeaked as Crusader suddenly crossed the distance between them faster than she could even think to dodge and grab a hold of her.

But it wasn't his speed that caused her to squeak. She was used to that.

It was **how** he was holding her.

"Um…" Lacy stated eloquently as she felt one of Crusader's massive hands support her at the small of her back while the other caressed her cheek.

"I am not blaming you for that, my dear." Crusader spoke slowly, with an odd gentleness. "No one knows more about how the media can twist the truth more than I. Too many times I have been portrayed as some sort of dangerous fanatic instead of someone who simply gave his heart to the Lord."

Once again, Lacey was surprised how Crusader was suddenly a step away, clutching his fist in apparent anger as she balanced herself from the sudden absence of his support.

"Of course," He continued, rage tinting his normally light tone. "Such slander is normally only spread by Godless Heathens and those of little faith in the Lord"

"...Okay…"

Lacy was only mildly surprised this time when she, in a blur of motion, found herself held by the religious Italian.

"No, What I was talking about, my dear, was your career."

"My...Career?" Lacey dumbly asked as she tried to ignore how Crusader's chest armour seemed to be emphasising just how broad his chest was.

 _No Lacey! Bad Thoughts! Your husband is a lot better than that anyway._

"Yes. The passion of youth brings many to… Unfortunate paths in life." Crusader spoke softly. "I was hoping that, over the past two decades, you had seen the error of your criminal ways."

"Um… I don't?" Lacey guessed, still trying to calm herself down from comparing Crusader and her husband's… attributes.

Crusader's helmet moved close enough to Lacey's face that she thought that she could almost see Fernando's deep blue eyes behind the helmet's visor.

"Not even some doubt?" He asked the smaller villainess, his voice having dropped to a soft but powerful whisper.

"I… Uh."

"My Lord! You forgot your sword downstairs so I…" Lacey heard the voice of a young woman trail off behind Crusader.

Crusader turned towards the voice, giving Lacey a clear view of the woman who spoke.

The first thing that Lacey noticed about the new arrival was just how young she was. Her face was smooth with none of the telltale signs of cosmetics and her hair was bright blonde and tied behind her head in a large bun. From her sheer youthful look, Lacy would place her in her early twenties. The second thing that Lacey noticed was her attire. Besides her head, the rest of her body was covered in armour that almost mirrored Crusader's exactly except for being significantly lighter and being more… form fitting.

And while Crusader failed to notice, the shifting eyes of the Royal guardsmen showed that they very much did.

Lacey wasn't afraid to admit that the mini-crusader looked good, even with the massive sword dragging behind her tired arms.

"Simone," Crusader addressed the new arrival with a sigh. " One cannot simply run with such a weapon. If I were to have carried my trusty blade, I would not have made it here in time to try and redeem this fair maiden and these guards would have lay defeated on the very floor they stand on."

Ignoring the awkward shuffling from the guards, Simone looked at Lacey, who had just recovered from the lack of Crusader's support with an expression that could have set alight water itself with the amount of rage it was expressing.

 _Oh… So that's how it is it?_ She thought to herself. She had wondered when Crusader would have attained a unnoticed crush eventually.

"Leave my wife alone!" Kurt shouted and then suddenly there were Robot bulldogs.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 **SBBE Science Floor (Under construction. Any attempt to steal the specimens will result in feeding offenders to them.)**

"No. No. No." An Irate Danny said to the confused couple. "That is not how you tell a story."

Danny tuned out Lacey's objection that she had learned enough in High School to be able to tell a story and looked around his personal lab. He sighed, it always looked so cliche with all the smooth curves and the steel flooring blending well with the high tech instruments.

 _Maybe a rug would help_ … he mused as he looked at the steel flooring.

"I don't care, Lacey." Danny interrupted the lithe infiltrator before she could start her, often exaggerated, lecture about her experience as a romance writer. "You can't put the middle of the story in the beginning. And why is this a story anyway? I just asked how your trip to Paris went."

"We thought that you would have appreciated some drama in the retelling" Kurt spoke up, red eyes peeking past the rim of his sunglasses.

"Then explain the holes in your story then, and that terrible ending" Danny challenged them, leaning back in his chair with a stony expression.

"What terrible ending?" Lacey asked, making a visible effort at appearing innocently ignorant.

That hadn't worked on Danny for twenty years.

"Yes, Lacey. Using a single, badly worded sentence is not actually a good ending to a story. Where did the dogs come from? What happened after Kurt shouted, what was he doing?"

"I-"

"And what is this about the Jammie Dodgers…"

"Well…"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As Lacey was about to enter the apartment she and her husband were sharing, after attaining some much needed groceries, she heard a terrible sound.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" She heard Kurt yell in utter despair inside the room.

Unbeknownst to her, Kurt had found the empty packet of Jammie Dodgers that Kurt had bought the previous day but Lacey had eaten through a midnight snack binge the previous day.

She had hoped for the action to go forgotten, just like when she would borrow her husband's favorite Coffee mug to hold her Hot chocolate.

But alas, the plots of revenge were already-

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lacey was interrupted by a blank stare from Danny, the Evil Genius' gaze boring into her.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, hopeful that nothing was.

"…"

"…"

"You can't do that in a flashback." Danny finally stated after a moment of silence.

"Do what?"

"Okay, the flashback is from your point of view correct?"

"Yes…" She answered uncertainly, unsure where her old friend was going with this.

"Then you can't tell us what Kurt was thinking, as you personally aren't Kurt."

"I-"

Danny raised a hand to interrupt her.

"At the moment. I meant you aren't Kurt at the moment. And, as you are not him in your 'POV' as Annette liked to say, you can't just include someone else's experience in your experience."

"You know a lot about that?" Lacey asked, slightly chuffed at the thought of being corrected like a school girl.

Thankfully, Danny never really reads these transcripts and I, G-Bot, have a 99% likelihood of never being lectured in a similar fashion.

"Annette used to mark narrative essays from her students at home. Trust me, I am more than familiar with rants of the narrative kind," Danny spoke slowly as if remembering the, no doubt, large number of rants fondly.

"Moving on, let's review a more pressing error you made in your telling of events."

"I have no ide-"

"And what about the fact that you totally misrepresented Crusader?"

"No. Crusader was totally like that… Honest." Lacey deflected, rubbing the back of her neck nervously.

"Lacey…" Danny drawled slowly, his blank stare not shifting its focus away from the lithe Infiltrator's face. "Crusader isn't Italian."

"What!? O-of Course he is. I heard him back in England, that's what I said."

"Lacey…"

"O-okay. It happened somewhat differently…"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Aye lassie, urr ye ready tae repent noo or am ah aff tae hae tae gang a' Old testament oan yer braw self?"

Lacey would have loved to give Crusader a scathing remark. It wasn't often that she had the opportunity to make fun of such a thick accent and she had been saving up quite the repertoire of witty banter.

Unfortunately, being held a significant distance above the ground, Crusader's armoured hand wrapped around her neck, gave her little opportunity for witty banter, let alone breathing.

"Urk." Lacey grunted out as she let out a choked breath that was meant to insinuate Crusader's mouth had some relationship with the Lochness Monster. Her eyes roved across the room, spotting her husband bodily throwing around several of the Tower Guard as he dodged the wild swings from a white-haired woman wearing a more form-fitting version of Crusader's armour.

"Let go of my Wife, you celibate pervert!" Suddenly, as though called by Lacey's choked gurgling, Kurt teleported behind Crusader and lifted him up in a suplex, causing her to be dropped by the Faithful Scottsman.

She watched in horror as Kurt slammed him down on a very specific display case.

The one that contained the crown jewles.

Lacey could only manage a weird hybrid of a cough and a sigh as the Vault's roof opened and disgorged its cargo of Robotic Bulldogs, barking in excitement.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hmmm."

"Yes?" Lacey looked towards Danny, a hopeful look on her face at the contemplating Evil Genius.

After a second of silence, Danny sighed.

"Mechanically, its better. You are still wrong though."

Lacey gave out a sigh of exasperation.

"So what is exactly wrong this time?"

"Crusader is Irish, not Scottish…"

Lacey froze, and one could have sworn that an inaudible crack was heard as Lacey's train of thought derailed.

I did not inform the medical team as, my audible sensors being immune to metaphor, did not detect an audible crack.

"Why don't you tell me what really happened?" Danny asked slowly.

Lacey nodded equally slowly and opened her mouth to speak.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lacey couldn't keep the grin off her face as she slowly picked the lock on the case that contained the British Imperial state crown.

Well, if you could call hacking a tinker-tech keypad and the more mundane but more complex bioscanner behind it simultaneously while picking the actual lock above the keypad as merely lock-picking.

Lacey did, she opened worse locks during her old career, the one that Myrridan designed to shoot boulders at people who didn't do the right dance infront of it was a particularly fond memory.

It was all worth it to see his face as he watched him use his spare staff as stripper pole when she crashed Alexandria's Birthday party, and consequently ruined her birthday cake as she burst out of it.

That wasn't what was making her smile though.

The infiltration had been perfect.

After obtaining uniforms from a particularly amorous couple of Tower Guards, Kurt's skill at forging documents had allowed them to pretty much stroll into the Tower of London's secure vault.

After seeing the amount of gold, in the vault with them, their sly grins had gotten even wider.

Surely, Danny wouldn't mind if they took some home? The gold bars in their house's safe were getting lonely.

And who didn't want to brag that they looted some Nazi gold, even if the one being looted weren't Nazis themselves.

Of course, the job came first after all and Lacey let out a laugh as her efforts on the lock provided fruit and the display case's door clicked open.

 _Just like taking candy from SABRE._

Honestly, she could feel only a tinge of disappointment at the ease of the theft she was committing. Back when SABRE was in charge of England's security, Lacey and her husband had to be the most careful whenever they tried to steal anything that had to do with the royal family.

Because otherwise they would be facing at least a hundred John Steele wannabes popping out of every mail box and pub.

And there were a lot of those in London especially.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

" _Wait, where does Crusader fall into this?"_

 _"He doesn't. I saw him and his 'assistant'," Lacey winked at Danny. "on a tour of one of the Cahtedrals in London as he sulked moodily about 'protestant heathens' or something like that."_

 _"Hmm... Okay. Go on..."_

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hey, Lacey, Catch!" Lacey was brought out of her thoughts suddenly by Kurt's call.

In her distracted state, she failed to notice the thrown gold bar go past her.

And crash into the display case.

The lock might have been disabled but the sensors on the glass were not.

Lacey could only sigh loudly as the alarm went off, the noise barely concealing the excited barking of the Robot Bulldogs dropping from, now open, slots in the celing.

"Oops. Sorry!" Kurt yelled as he was glomped by a pack of cybernetic hounds.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This time, Danny's stare was meant for Kurt.

"…"

"I said I was sorry!" Kurt caved into the pressure near instantly, not being able to withstand a stare from his old Friend.

"You will have to work this off. Lacey's outfits are expensive and no one alive can fix that dog bitten scrap of rubber that used to be her combat suit." Danny said as Kurt flinched. They had managed to escape with the diamond but not without the Robots ripping Lacey's suit to literal shreds somehow.

The argument had not been fun, being put in a metaphorical dog-house never was.

What came after was a lot more fun though.

"For goodness sake Kurt, Stop thinking about your wife for one second!" An Irate Danny yelled at the distracted Kurt while Lacey smiled, simultaneously glad that Kurt was the one in trouble with their friend/boss and she was partly the reason why.

"Right.., So, What do I do?" Kurt asked, slightly eager to get to work if only to avoid the seemingly building wrath of the Evil Genius.

Danny sighed as he leaned back into his chair, forcefully calming himself down. His short temper was always a problem when it came to business.

"Kurt. You are going to clean the Docks of ABB and Merchants so that Evil Corp can move in when Alan is ready to do so,"

"Okay the-"

"Aaaand." Danny continued. "You are going to help Alan with the finances after you are done."

Kurt deflated a bit.

"I… Don't know how to do that?" Kurt tried.

"Kurt, you are an accountant. Get going." Danny ordered and watched as Kurt silently turned and left the Lab.

"As for you, Lacey."

"Y-Yes boss?" She stammered out, the glare that Danny was giving her not exactly making her feel very comfortable.

"I need you on the Canary thing. Get the trial hosted either here or Boston. New York has too many heroes in it to make it a clean extraction."

"Umm… Working without Kurt is going to make it a lot harder to do…"

Danny rolled his eyes.

"I know, and this is partially your punishment for letting your combat skills degrade enough that your modesty was defeated by hyperactive Dog bots. I'm also prescribing you mandatory evasion training, make sure you're there when G-Bot schedules you in or I am getting Jimmy to drag you there."

"Speaking of G-Bot, can't he help me. He is named _Government Bot_ after all." Lacey asked, ignoring the threat of both the training and the Elder Minion's version of it.

Danny shook his head.

"G-Bot is busy 'investigating a possible nemesis' or something like that. Now get going."

Danny sighed as Lacey left the lab.

"Hopefully your nemesis doesn't have to deal with this type of nonsense…" Danny said to the 'empty' lab.

…

Unfortunately Danny was not completely correct…

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I'm telling you Dragon, based on the impact patterns on the Dog Chassis, it indicates that the attacker was skilled in a mixed-martial art style popular in America. If I cross-reference the open studios teaching this art twenty years ago-"

"Collin! Stop working and Go to bed! Not sleeping for eight days is not good for you no matter how 'efficient' you are."

"That is exactly what they want you to think"

" _Sigh_ "


	9. Plotting 2,3

**Hello and Welcome to your occasional dose of mediocre crack fic!**

 **xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

 **Brocton Bay**

 **30 January 2011**

 **Docks: Warehouse Area (Currently in the process of Mass Friendly Takeover. For Further Enquires, please contact Evil Corp Representative Lacey Breen)**

"I can't believe you've done this."

"Come on. Its not that bad. Where is your sense of adventure?"

Brian's brows somehow deepened further than Lisa had ever seen before, and since that fateful day in the park.

"It curled up and died next to your sense of reason…" Brian let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Lisa let a grin come onto her face, one of confidence and not one of nervousness like the one she was trying to suppress.

What had she been thinking?

Brian, when he saw Lisa's grin, let out an even deeper sigh.

Yeah, she hated Coil but to do this? To just up and abandon the villain who had literally threatened her with death, a fate worse than death and a fate worse than a fate worse than death to join up with a girl who had no money, no reputation and absolutely no desire to be a villain. To say that it looked like she had a death wish was an understatement to say the least.

Daring Coil to kill her would have been a more reasonable choice.

But reason didn't account for just how _utterly_ broken that same girl was. For Lisa, it was almost reflex to look over every person she met with her power, carefully looking for anyone that would have caused trouble for her. Then she had looked over Taylor…

At the time of first seeing her, her power had gone bezerk, throwing a bizzare jumble of insane words and what she could only assume were project names at her unprepared mind. Forget Tinker Headache, she had thought that her brain was going to explode before her power blissfully short-circuited itself out.

Any reasonable person would have left it at that, attributed it to either a quirk of her power or a Stranger power and left immediately.

Unfortunately, Brian was right. It seemed that her sense of reason did seem to curl up and die out.

To her mind, which felt as though it was on fire, Taylor had been a curiosity. Curiosities had potential to be beneficial to a girl in her position.

And in her position, you couldn't refuse beneficial.

"Don't worry about it boss man!" Alec, looking almost ridiculous in a deliberately baggy shirt and jeans and purposefully inspired by his costume as Regent, grinned towards Brian. "Our bigger boss man pretty much told us to go along with it anyway, so nothing's really changed."

Lisa nodded her head tentatively at Alec's point. It was odd how her boss, unknowingly to the others as Coil, had simply ordered them to ' _work'_ for what seemed to be a heroic Tinker.

Lisa had almost had a power-fuelled epileptic fit the moment when he had heard Coil tell them to work for the shy girl that she had met in the park that day. It was just so out of character for Coil to send the Undersiders, especially Tattletale, to go into the tentative employ of a complete unknown, even if they were still technically working for him. Both her natural intuition and her power had confirmed that Coil was an extremely controlling individual. It was obvious from how he controlled his body expression around her and how he kept referring to her as his "pet" that he wouldn't exactly be willing to part with any control that he had over her.

Even after literal brain burning hours with her power analysing what she knew, she still had no idea why Coil would loosen his control like that. She did figure that the ten-minute-long silence on the phone had something to do with it however.

"So you have no problems working for a person wanting to be a hero? While we are _Villains_?" Brian's exasperated stare landed on the grinning Alec.

"I mean, we still get paid right?" Alec shot back with a shrug as he sent a small glance towards Lisa.

 _Wants reassurance. Worried about not getting paid by Coil. Worried that his new boss won't pay him._

Lisa smirked, a genuine one this time, as she found the perfect way to get revenge on the horde of "mid-life crisis" and "innocent girl" comments he was throwing at her yesterday.

With a confidence she didn't really feel, she winked at Alec and turned away as she walked to their destination.

It seemed that Brian had also had enough of trying to figure out how everything in his life had got flipped upside down as he followed Lisa, even as he pinched the bridge of his nose for the thirtieth time that morning.

"Wait." Alec blandly stated, his face grew a worried frown. "I am getting paid. Right? Right!?"

With that, Alec sped after them, eager to get a prognosis on his future bank balance.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If she was honest with herself, Lisa had no idea why Taylor had asked the Undersiders to meet at the docks.

Like any good Villainess, Lisa had taken the time to look up their new benefactor and Taylor had nothing to her that would point to the thin teenage girl being anything but a thin, shy teenage girl.

Of course, that was only the _official_ story.

When it came to capes, the official story was rarely the truth. Powers had a habit of letting even the most boring and unambitious of people destroy both the rules of logic and believability. It didn't make sense how a man could simply create metal out of other metal or how a woman could create earthquakes by lying, half-naked, on the floor. So if Taylor was a Tinker, like she suspected from her power's terrified gibbering, then it would be completely reasonable for her to have a secret lab somewhere, especially in a cliched place like an abandoned warehouse.

Infact, it seemed that occupying an abandoned warehouse was in fashion for ambiguous organisations lately. On the way to the warehouse that corresponded to the address that she had received from Taylor, the three Undersiders had tripped over at least a dozen warehouses that were also "abandoned". There were the typical mixture of drug dens, illegal hide aways and completely legal storehouses with only the small complication of not being owned by the tenants. There were some that stood out like the ABB warehouse where the red and green guards were too busy unloading an obscene number of expensive chairs into a cramped warehouse, stacked with identical chairs. There was also the warehouse that the E88 were using as a sort of assembly line for baked goods where Lisa and her two teammates couldn't help but share a quiet laugh at the assembly of tough, tattooed, skinheads were baking cupcakes by the dozen in fluffy pink aprons. Since it seemed that Othala was supervising everything, Lisa had a good guess on who choose the uniform. The situation only grew more hilarious when Lisa had spotted a squad of black-clad mercenaries from a nearby Coil warehouse, using their immense tactical experience to steal boxes of cupcakes from the inattentive Neo-Nazis.

Her hate of the stick-thin villain aside, she had to admit that it was quite a sight seeing the mercenaries duck and dodge behind cover, cupcake and cookie boxes in hand as they narrowly avoided detection. It was also significantly more effort than their fellow thieves were going to, the small group of yellow jumpsuited men and women laughing a street away as one of the women operated a Tinkertech device to teleport unattended boxes to the group of hungry workers.

She was tempted to ask them for a cupcake or two, but she decided that they should probably move on when her power started a too familiar gibbering when she tried to examine their teleport gun.

Lisa did share a private smile with herself from being vindicated on her decision to have an abandoned storehouse as a base for the Undersiders. There were far too many people hanging around the "abandoned" warehouse area to have any amount of secrecy. If they had gone with Brian's initial suggestion of setting up here, then it would be likely that E88's Victor would have come over to borrow some sugar one day.

She did have an idle thought of wonder however. _Was the Bay always so animated? Full of life, even in its abandoned areas? Or was something causing this to happen?_

Despite the distraction of the unpaid bake sale, Lisa, Brian and Alec managed to make it to their destination. In front of the three teenage villains was a large warehouse, the uniquely nondescript, weathered outside rendering it unique amongst its theoretically nondescript neighbours, with a very nervous looking Taylor in front of the warehouse's door.

Lisa took the opportunity to look over her new employer again. To Lisa's normal eyes, Taylor looked like an average teenage girl. She was wearing baggy jeans and shirt with a slightly larger hoodie in what seemed to be an attempt to hide that she was self-conscious about having a thin figure and a small, if any, breast size.

Completely normal teenage girl things.

Lisa couldn't help but compare her outfit with Taylor's. Ironically, trying to hide something badly always made it more noticeable and unfortunately for Taylor, Lisa's tight fitting blue shirt along with a carefully chosen pair of skinny jeans did less to bring attention to Lisa's figure than Taylor's attempt at wearing a tent made out of clothes brought attention to her's.

Lisa gave a silent sigh to herself, schooling her expression so that her slight exasperation wouldn't register to Taylor's bespectacled brown eyes who looked at her with hesitation almost through her curly brown hair, the only part of her appearance that seemed to have any care put into it at all. She could only wonder what she would look like if Taylor even tried looking good.

Actually, if this was her attempt at looking as good as possible for her "henchmen" then Lisa felt slightly jealous at what Taylor could look like if someone had actually taught her _how_ to look good.

From only a glance, she could tell that Taylor was a girl that would either get ignored or bullied, either through jealously at the effortless way she managed to look average or the fact that she didn't have the self confidence to own her looks. All in all, it seemed that Taylor had a bit of a complex, comparing herself to some unknown beauty standard coupled with a bit of bullying had probably tanked her self-confidence.

Hence, why she was subconsciously trying to shy away from her new subordinates.

All of that she had figured out without her power, and a quick application of it only confirmed her theory.

And that was when her power started gibbering again. Ignoring the nascent headache that was forming behind her eyes, Lisa tried to find the small amount of comprehensible information that her power was giving her.

 _Nervous. Convinced that you are here to mock her for multiple reasons. Thinks she made a huge mistake accepting your proposal and is enaging in self-humiliation. A Dwarf Spider can be impr0ved using rthe c0ontents f an Oven and THREE Tshirts of Salt…_

Ignoring the nonsense, Lisa took her power to heart and put a disarming smile on her face, hoping to put Taylor at ease through a gesture of friendliness.

Distance from Coil was critical for her freedom and survival. Lisa **needed** this to work.

"Hello Taylor. I would like to introduce you to my two teammates. Here is Brian" Lisa gestured to the man in question who nodded at the fifteen year-old girl. Lisa didn't miss how Taylor's eyes darted towards Brian's black t-shirt, jeans and jacket combo which showed just the right amount of muscle to look good but not overwhelmingly good.

She should know considering she helped him choose it out.

While Brian noticed the looks, Lisa was pretty sure that she was the only one who noticed the light dusting of pink on Taylor's cheeks as she did so. _Interesting._

Next Lisa pointed in the vague direction of Alec. "And this charming timetraveller is Alec. He is as odd as he looks."

"Hey," Alec protested, not taking any offense at all while his voice took on an exaggerated regal quality. "I happen to look significantly better than any of you unwashed peasants."

"There is one more of us but… Rachel couldn't really come..." Lisa lied a bit. There was no way she was going to bring someone as volatile as Racheal to someone as fragile as Taylor seemed.

That was an easy way to get enslaved/killed by a snake fetishist.

"So," Lisa continued, hoping that letting a bit of awkwardness enter her voice would help Taylor's nervousness. "That's the Undersiders."

She cringed internally. She **hated** sounding like some sort of awkward teenage villain, but she needed to keep Taylor calm. Everyone knew that powers affected their hosts mental state, it was easy enough to see in Lung's case, and with how Lisa's power acted around Taylor, who knew how the girl reacted to ordinary stimuli.

There was silence as Taylor looked at Alec, his outfit and finally his long hair.

"Nice to meet you all." Taylor eventually said, her face showing more of her inner turmoil than her soft voice did.

The silence stretched on.

 _"_ Well, I'm feeling motivated, Boss." Alec snarked, sarcasm turning to pained amusement as Lisa stomped down on his foot.

"Look, just ignore him, I mostly do."

As though broken from a daze, Taylor shook her head quickly.

"Oh, no. Don't worry. I'm kind of used to it." Alec wagged his eyebrows at Lisa with a knowing look. Dammit, he unfortunately got this point for his attempt to break the ice.

"Well." Lisa didn't let Taylor focus on potentially Lisa-threatening thoughts. "While we _are_ here. Why don't you tell us why you called us here?" she suggested, hoping that it didn't involve any Tinkertech testing on the new henchmen.

Taylor's face lost all evidence of nervousness in that moment and was replaced by a suspicious look towards Lisa.

 _Uh Oh._ Her mind helpfully provided commentary.

"I thought you called me here?"

Lisa's eyebrow raised.

"No. I got a text that said it was from you saying that we should meet you here."

Taylor's brow furrowed, surprising Lisa by the sudden intensity of that gaze. Maybe she wasn't so normal after all?

"I got a letter at my house telling me to come here…" Taylor's voice trailed off as she thought

 _Jeans Can be made bi HEATING Squids. Confused. Can't send a T3xt. Doesn't own a cellphone._

Lisa's eyes widened as she realised…

"Someone has lured both of us here." Taylor said, a steely tone entering her voice as she voiced Lisa's thoughts.

Glancing behind her, she could see Brian tensing up. Having been given an explanation on exactly what Lisa's power did around the tall brunette and how volatile she could be, he had been content in delegating the leader role to her as they talked for the first time and, instead, focusing on his surroundings. The news that they had been lured here left him scanning the area around him as black smoke started swirling around his fingers. His power was ready to give them cover so that they could escape as the Undersiders had done dozens of times before.

Alec yawned loudly as he engrossed himself in picking his ear, completely uninterested in the prospect of being ambushed. Or at least that was what his body language was saying as Lisa saw his eyes sharply scanning the area as well.

All of a sudden, the massive warehouse door behind Taylor started opening, the groaning of decade old motors echoing around the group of teens as they lifted the weathered steel door. As the door lifted, the interior of the warehouse was revealed which caused both Lisa and Taylor to draw a sudden breath. Alec whistled.

The interior of the warehouse looked like something out of a scifi or superhero show. Scattered across the room was literal tons of scientific equipment and manufacturing tools which were arranged in such a way for one person to access every part of the room easily, presumably from the wheeled office chair in the middle.

 _Scientific instruments are paired with work tables and other manufacturing devices. Room designed for both Research and Development simultaneously. Perfect Tinker lab._ Lisa's power helpfully supplied, providing her mind with several, pressing questions.

Her questions only increased when she noticed a thin, teenage boy wearing a leather jacket with blond hair holding the remote to the door that he just opened.

"Yup." The boy said, his voice as relaxed as his posture. "I lured you here."

Lisa was just about to voice the million questions on her mind when the a confused Taylor interrupted all of them with one sentence.

"Greg?!" Taylor all but yelled in surprise.

"Yup." Greg answered, completely unaffected by the surprise on everyone's faces. "Here is your keys to the lab, Taylor. Oh, and your new cell phone!"

Greg threw both a cell phone and what looked like the keys to the warehouse at Taylor, who caught them with a bit of fumbling.

"But… How?"

"Don't worry about it. Just remember to lock up after you're done for the day. Half of this stuff is reaaaaaly expensive." He gave Taylor a wink. "Your henchman also has the number of that phone now."

Lisa's attention turned fully to Taylor, hoping for her incredibly dangerous new boss to explain what was going on. Instead, Taylor seemed to be looking past the teenage boy in front of the group.

"IS THAT A 3D PRINTER!?" Taylor's face suddenly lit up as she into the warehouse, seemingly ignoring the blond boy's presence. Lisa was further surprised when her two companions entered the warehouse warily behind the Teenage Tinker, also completely ignoring the boy as well.

Greg sighed. "Well, that's what I get for expecting a thank you this time." He moaned glumly.

"Okay, Just who are you?" Lisa demanded. Greg spun around towards Lisa, surprise evident on his face.

 _Not expecting to be noticed. Doesn't expect to be by most people. Most people can't. Stranger power._

Lisa took note of her power's observations, even as Greg schooled a cool but definitely happy expression on his face.

"Ah, A Thinker I see." Greg yelled out, unconcerned about anyone hearing him. "Allow me to introduce myself. Greg Veder, Super minion for hire."

"for hire?" Lisa echoed, eybrow raised.

"Yes. By a very exclusive clientele I might add." Greg added proudly.

"Then howcome I haven't heard of anyone like you?" Lisa felt her suspicion grow of the strange boy infront of her. Greg winced slightly.

"Merely the unfortunate part of my power. For you see, I have a sort of perception filter around me that leaves people's mental image of me as somewhat of a bore and quite useless individual. Only Thinkers of a high quality can actually remember the real me."

"So…" Lisa promted, ignoring the subtle praise.

"I once saved a family from a burning building once. They attributed it to the family cat." Greg's voice had gone completely deadpan.

"Oh." Lisa was near speechless. She had never heard of a stranger power that completely powerful before. But then again, maybe that was the point?

"But hey, all water under the bridge." Greg's happy demeanor had returned in full force. "In fact, I am here on a bit of a job to make sure that Taylor has all she needs."

Before Lisa could say anything, Greg raised his hands to stop her reply.

"I know what you are thinking, and no. My current boss doesn't mean Taylor any harm. I don't think he even knows she Is here. And no, you don't want to mess with a guy like him anyway so just drop it."

The slight sudden gibbering of her power let her believe Greg wholeheartedly.

"Hey, I gotta go now. Got some jobs for our resident Miss America and little depression cleric lined up, but hey, Just give me a call if you need some work done or just wanna chat a bit. I'm even available for a bit of a booty call if you are feeling it." Greg winked at Lisa, giving her a business card as he began to turn away.

"A booty call, with someone you just met? You must not meet a lot of girls around."

"Hey, gotta take a chance." Greg shrugged. "I can safely count the amount of people who actually remember me on one hand, and even my parents ain't one of them. When I see a beautiful girl that doesn't forget me in a dozen seconds, I gotta take a shot."

"That's a problem for you is it?" Lisa grinned. She had to admit, she liked his seemingly simple nature. He seemed almost incapable of lying to seem cooler than he was.

"Yup. You have no idea how awkward it it when a kiss turns non-consensual in the middle of it. Or when she becomes convinced that the person she accused of attempted rape is now herself." Greg checked his watch. "Damn. Gotta go now. Have a good day Miss model."

"It's Lisa!" She called after Greg as he jogged off towards the main road.

"I know!" he called back. Lisa got the impression that he was grinnig as he did so.

 _Is, in fact, Grinning._

 _Thank you for the obvious._

As Lisa turned back towards the open warehouse, seeing Taylor messing around with all the equipment inside, she couldn't help but smile. How long has it been since she met someone so honest? Had she ever been that honest with a complete stranger. She knew it was only because any effort on his part to impress people with lies was going to go to waste anyway. Regardless, It was nice for her power to not constantly tell her that the person in front of her was lying through is teeth.

As she entered through the massive warehouse door, intent on making sure that Taylor wasn't going to destroy them all, she decided she was going to call him back.

She could use a friendly face like his to chat to.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Dammit." Emma Barnes cursed from her perch from the warehouse's skylight.

She had a full view of her friend down there, and she knew that Taylor was falling deeper into her Evil Genius side by the second.

Emma had to hold back a sob. She had tried so hard to avoid her friend from going down this path. To give her a normal life, far from the life of chaos and insanity that both their dads lived. She had tried slowly when they were kids, Emma's young mind already understanding the danger that her fellow playmate was falling into.

Everything had been going well, until Taylor had come back from summer camp.

When Emma had visited her, disassembling a fridge to build a miniature freeze ray. Almost immediately, Emma had leapt into action that day, tricking her best friend into taking a nap while she took the afternoon to rebuild the fridge before their parents got home. It was that day where she lost hope for her friend. She had found herself withdrawing from Taylor as everynight had brought nightmares of police, villains or monsters ripping her friend apart or worse, simply because she couldn't be normal.

And then Annette Hebert died.

It had been tragic. Emma had found herself crying along with her best friend, Annette having been like a second mother to her. But that was when she saw it…

In her grief, in the trauma of her mother's death had stilled the side of Taylor that would have got her killed.

From that came a plan that still shreaded her heart and almost forced her to vomit.

And a hope that her friend wouldn't be murdered in a ditch somewhere.

It had been easy to recruit Sophia. A speech about strength and pretending to be some sort of love-sick puppy to the psycho had been enough to get her on board. Madison had been significantly easier, quickly being coerced and bribed with useless social standing, not knowing what real power was. She would have been a great minion for Taylor if Emma hadn't gotten to her first.

And so Emma then betrayed her friend and began bullying her, all in the hope of saving her life.

But it went on.

And on.

And on.

It didn't seem to be working and overtime, she hated herself more and more for putting her friend through this.

The excuse became more and more hollow.

The Locker was a last ditch plan. A final try to save her friend from herself.

The Danny Hebert had found out.

Instantly her plans were crushed, her father keeping tabs on her to make sure that she didn't bother Taylor again while Madison and Sophia had been thoroughly intimidated by Danny's use of indirect coercion.

In fact, Madison seemed to be growing an admiration for Taylor after accidentially discovering who her father was.

It all had built up to this. Her best friend was down there, happy and falling deeper into her particular brand of madness.

And all Emma had accomplished over two years was to mentally torture her friend for no reason.

Her father had always said that the end justifies the means, but what if you failed to get the end you wanted?

Emma remembered her early joy in helping Taylor with her science as a kid and she would have liked to be down there now, enjoying her friend's happiness as Emma took care of her.

But Emma had thrown away that chance to be happy with Taylor, for a long shot at saving her only friend from an inevitable violent death.

As Emma creeped down from the roof, her custom stealth suit leaving her all but invisible to passers by, she lamented on what could have been.

What could have been, if she had just left it alone….


	10. Plotting 2,4

**Once more into the breach and once more I realise that I suck at writing in a timely manner.**

 **Hope you enjoy the chapter regardless!  
**

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 **Brockton Bay**

 **1st February 2011**

 **Secret Subterranean Base of Evil**

 **Floor 69 (Warning: Drowning Hazard. Fatalities will be unfairly judged and mocked.)**

If there was one part of Danny Herbert that Alan Barnes could get tired of then that would Danny's surprisingly childish impulses. Unlike most people, whose childish impulses led them to either make fart jokes, Danny's happened to be a bit more productive…

Hence, Floor 69.

Surprisingly, the idea behind it wasn't an especially bad or completely spontaneous one but Alan had a… _small_ problem with how much effort Danny went to make it.

The Idea was simple, If you were going to have a Doomsday device, then you probably wanted to put it into a room at the very end of your super-secret base, forcing any intruders to fight through the legion of motivated minions- nothing motivates them more than fighting in the same place they sleep- before they could stop whatever nefarious plan you were planning.

When Danny said that he needed an entire _floor_ to place his new device in, Alan was okay with it. It wasn't like he knew what science Danny did most of the time.

When Danny said that he needed to actually build a new floor as well, Alan wasn't even sceptical. Every one of Danny's projects were always ludicrously complicated to build with very specific parts, that small tradition had gone all the way back to the Bra dissolver back in their college days.

No, what Alan didn't like was all the effort Danny had wasted for a dumb joke because he made his 'Doomsday Floor' a full twenty eight floors deeper than the deepest floor of the actual base. Or at least that was what he had told the minions sharing a crowded elevator with him when they had asked what he was grumbling about.

It wouldn't do wonders for morale to tell them that the exact reason he hated floor 69 was because he **had** to use an elevator crowded with minions with construction equipment every time he had to drag Danny from his scientific isolationism, like any best friend should.

 _At least the minion's uniforms look pretty good._ Alan thought to himself, squeezed uncomfortably between the wall of the elevator and a large man clad in a yellow jumpsuit and white hard hat. With the total absorption of the Dockworker's Association, barring the administration staff who went into the Organization's management team, some dissatisfied gang members and a few pickup truck-fulls of homeless people left the number of minions sitting around six hundred or so. Ironically, finding uniform suppliers that would supply hundreds of yellow jumpsuits, and a few custom uniforms for the minions that happened to have specialised skills, was alarmingly easy. Finding a way to avoid a supplier from informing the government, and thus the Forces of Justice, of a suspiciously large shipment of jumpsuits was a welcome challenge for the Lawyer in Alan Barnes.

It was less welcoming now that his face was close enough to see the fine detail of the jumpsuit on the man's shoulder. It was a better position than two other minions he could see. The two females had been squished front to front and one had a significant height difference from the other, causing the shorter one's face to be buried in the other's… assets with neither of the poor women seeming to be exactly enjoying the situation. Alan let out a sigh, giving him slightly more room to breathe, he really hoped that they weren't the whiny sort of minions. They still didn't have an official HR position so any complaints would be automatically brought to him and he was tired of the cramped elevator complaints.

 _"It's only temporary."_ Danny had said when Alan mentioned possibly expanding the elevator's size. _"After our legion of construction workers have finished, the only people who are going to be coming down here is the science team and the Forces of Justice. Why would I want to make it comfy for large amounts of heroes to invade my doomsday floor?"_

Alan grumbled to himself as he reflected that he still didn't really have an answer for Danny besides that the taste of Jumpsuit sucked.

At last, the elevator's strained rumbling came to a halt and a sharp ding bought the feeling of relief to all its occupants. Even before the slow rumbling door opened all the way, people were already squeezing themselves out of the elevator, desperate for the vaunted concept of personal space to return to their tortured minds. Keeping their existence secret, only the first three levels of the base had been filled, apart from the science floor around floor twenty, and the Evil Lawyer and minions had been cramped into the single elevator for a ride that was over fifty floors long.

After escaping the elevator and taking the time to stretch, Alan looked around the expansive area that was the Doomsday floor.

Every time he looked over the expansive area, he couldn't help being awestruck. All around him was not a series of corridors and rooms but a massive expansive room that covered the entire floor, massive pylons of high tech electronics reaching from ceiling to floor, each at least fifty meters tall. The elevator led out onto a steel platform connected to the wall around midway, that connecting to a large series of connecting walkways and gantries leading to all the towers, which were covered in hordes of construction minions, slowly constructing whatever techno science that was inside them. Looking down, Alan saw the massive expanse below being filled with water, likely from the previously existing Aquifer, that Danny said would serve as a cooling system.

Alan's eyebrow raised at the sight of some minions being swept away, their bright yellow jumpsuits visible in the shifting water. Alan really hoped that they would get saved by their fellows soon. Worksite accidents, especially deaths, were so much work.

Standing up straight, Alan made his way to his true destination, massive central tower in the middle of the expansive floor.

When he finally made it there, he saw Danny messing around with a terminal on the catwalk surrounding the tower. Looking over his still-best-friend, Alan was surprised to see what exactly Danny was wearing. Danny's old Evil Genius uniform had always looked like a cartoon villain's but apparently he had got a new one. The style had stayed the same but the colour of his faux military uniform had been changed to a deep red with golden buttons. A blue cape now adorned his shoulders, ironically framing the unassuming face that would have been hidden by a missing silver helmet

"Danny?" Alan tried to get his friend's attention and was rewarded when his friend let out a surprised 'what' and spun around.

"Don't scare me like that, Alan." Danny breathed out in relief. "These dimensional calibrations need to be very precise."

"It must be, considering you didn't hear my shoes clanking against the walkway the entire way here." Alan replied. "That's an… interesting change for you, Danny." Alan pointedly looked at Danny's outfit.

Following Alan's gaze, Danny smiled.

"Well. Considering it has been so long since the last time I wore the old suit, I figured that I should change it up."

"It certainly is a change." Alan covered for the fact that he felt it a bit ostentatious. "That isn't the reason I'm down here though."

"Then why are you here?" Danny frowned in confusion, taking a look at the time display on his work terminal. "I know you've had to drag me away from work to get Taylor, but its only eight in the morning. It isn't time to meet her at home yet."

Alan smiled.

"I'm here to get you to do your job, Mr _CEO_. Mayor Christner asked for a meeting with the head of Evil Corp to discuss our attempts to buy out the Docks."

"I didn't agree to that." Danny quickly reflected, nervousness clear on his face.

"No, you didn't." Alan's smile grew vicious. "Lacey did it for you. She figured the sunlight would do you well."

"Well, unfortunately, I have plenty of work to do so-" Danny tried getting back to work but he winced as he felt Alan's hand land on his shoulder as he turned his back to him.

"Lacey isn't the only one who thinks that." Alan spoke as he pulled Danny towards him.

"Et tu Alan?"

"You can't stay in your lab all day and all of us are tired of you throwing your schemes at us while you do nothing." Alan grinned as he began dragging Danny away.

"No! Please! My project is too exciting! You can't stop me now! Please!" Danny begged his heartless friend.

"It will be here when you get back. Now, I have just the right business suit for you…"

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Danny screamed as Alan dragged him to his fate, drawing the mirthful eyes of the 'hard working' minions as they passed.

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Danny grumbled under his breath as he pulled up to Brockton Bay city hall in his trusty pick up truck.

Some people just didn't respect the needs of Doomsday plotting.

Danny sighed. Well, he was here now and he might as well just go to the meeting. Checking his face in the mirror, Danny quickly fixed a stray hair on his balding head and left the vehicle. After locking it up, The suited Evil Genius made his way up the nearby stairs to the large City Hall building.

Perhaps Ironically, Brockton Bay City Hall was one of the newest buildings in the entire city. There were no exposed brick and mortar walls, no imposing architecture or a sense of about to be entering an old school building. Instead, it was like a minimalist modern office building like the ones in New York City, albeit a stunted one. Looking up the walls of the building revealed four floors of large glass windows covering every floor with frames of steel between them. All around the concrete steps leading to the entrance of the building were a wide variety of people of all walks of life, from the uniformed police to snazzy council workers to shabbily dressed vagrants, that was the only indication that this was the seat of the town government.

Danny let out a grimace as he noticed that he was drawing the attention of some of the people that he passed. He had told Alan that he didn't look good in a suit and now he was even more conspicuous.

It made him want to blow up City hall and thoughts like that was probably why the building was the way it was. Danny remembered that the building used to be completely different, ancient with nice homely bricked walls, until the E88's All Father had blown it up to prove a point. His daughter, Iron Rain, then blew up the reconstructed building to get out of a parking ticket.

Then Danny had accidentally blown it up in a lab accident involving a misaligned death laser.

Then Lustrum had destroyed it in a 'peaceful' protest.

This went on and on until the city realised that it was way too much effort and expensive to keep rebuilding it the same way every time something vaguely sinister happened in the bay.

So, in response, the Mayor at the time had commissioned a team of architects to design a building designed to be functional and completely replaceable at a moments notice. One year of design, two years of legislation and a collection of customised steel frame pieces that acted kind of like Lego pieces and the city had the first and only government building that can be replaced approximately two days after it's inevitable destruction.

 _Truly a paragon of efficiency_ were the thoughts that Danny had as he opened the front door to the building and entered the lobby.

The Lobby itself was unsurprisingly bare compared to a typical lobby. There were no signs, no waiting chairs and no fancy artworks. It was a simple, steel room with a built in steel table on the other end of the room where a female secretary in a white blouse stood with her laptop as a workstation.

Danny walked up to the secretary who gave him a polite smile.

"Welcome to City Hall. How can I help you today?"

"Yes. My name is Daniel Hebert and I have a nine'o clock appointment with Mayor Christner."

"Hold on a minute, sir. " She quickly tapped a few keys on her laptop. "Ahh yes. Mayor Christner is waiting for you in the basement office."

Danny thanked the secretary and moved deeper into the building.

Due to its disposable nature, it became necessary to put the more permanent residents of the building, such as the mayor, in a bunker like basement level. That way, theoretically, the heads of government would be safe from random acts of combustion that happened to the building above.

Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Co-

Suddenly a nearby lawyer drew a Tinkertech laser rifle from his briefcase and fired a beam of deadly light straight at Danny's head. Danny looked on, unimpressed, as the laser hit his invisible energy shield, causing it to glow a translucent blue.

Sighing, Danny drew his personal Death Pistol from his inner suit pocket and returned fire on the confused assassin. The bright green blast hit him before the merc had any chance to react, reducing him to ashes.

 _Well, I warned Coil…_ Danny thought to himself as he entered the detonation sequence into his watch.

Danny looked out a nearby window as the ground shook and a huge pillar of concrete turned magma erupted from where Coil's base was, having been created by Danny's conversion charges and most likely dissolving the stupid snake painfu-

-====0-0-0-0

Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Coil a few months ago.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Come in" a strong voice erupted from beyond the office door after Danny knocked on it.

Walking through the door, Danny was immediately impressed. He had never been in Mayor Christner's office, Danny having retired before Christner had gotten into office, but it looked like he was a man of taste.

The Office itself looked like it had come out of an old James Bond film. The walls were panaled wood while the floor was a dark green carpet. Against the walls lay many cupboards and shelves of assorted expensive crockery decorations and several diplomas and hunting trophies were decorating the walls themselves. Teamed up with the apparent oakwood desk and comfortable sitting chairs it looked like a very professional office.

It looked so professional, in fact that it was completely obvious to Danny that it was all fake.

Where were the pictures of the Mayor's family? Coffee or tea stains on the built in carpet during long nights?

No, this room was built to impress, not work in.

The mayor, recogniseable by his wrinkles denoting his five decades of life, pristine suit, balding head and large ears, was even simply doodling on the paper infront of him.

The Mayor looked up, stared into Danny's eyes and then gave a friendly smile.

"Already found me out hey? Keeping where I actually work a secret is quite the advantage in Brockton Bay" he spoke in a voice that would have belonged to someone twenty years younger. Something that a younger person wouldn't pick up but as Danny had also suffered the ravages of time, he could tell the subtle difference.

"Hence this is your dummy office?

"Hence it is my Dummy Office." He confirmed with a nod. "Come! Have a seat Mr Hebert! I have been so eager to meet you."

Danny walked in and gave him a nervous smile as he sat down in a comfortable leather chair, the only difference being from the Mayor's chair that Danny's was smaller.

"It's nice to meet you too Mr Christner, but surely meeting me is not that important in the grand scheme of things. I'm simply a new CEO of a new company." Danny said poilitely. It already was a mere courtesy for an up and coming CEO to meet the Mayor before conducting a big amount of business in their city but being polite here would stop the Mayor from being an especially intrusive obstacle to his plans later, inevitably requiring a change in leadership for the city.

Election campaigns were so expensive.

"I think you will find, Mr Hebert, that it is very important to me that I meet with you, especially since you are the CEO of a company that only really began existing two weeks ago."

"I'm sure you'll find that our company has been in operation since 1832."

"That's what all the records say." The Mayor nodded while Danny sneaked a scrutinizing look at him. "However, looking a little deeper, I note a peculiar lack of any interruptions of business whatsoever."

Danny sat up a little straighter. This was no mere Mayor.

"Of course, If your company was really that old, I would be very impressed that the sudden introduction of parahumans in the 1960s had no effect on such an old company. Especially since new Villains at the time tended to take revenge on workplaces that previously hired them.

"Well, I can safely say that Evil Corp has a great history of employee satisfaction. We had no disgruntled employees to 'take revenge' as you say."

Mayor Christner nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Of course! My research revealed that too but, please allow me to continue my train of thought."

Danny nodded wearily, causing Christner to smile.

"Thank you. Well, I must say that I was very impressed when I read that little fact but, I was definitely confused on how you managed to maintain that during an economic depression."

"As well," Christner continued. "I was definitely interested to read that no Villain had managed to put a significant dent into your company's very unspecific business through out an entire century. Not to mention that It is incredibly fortunate that your company is still standing despite having your head office in three cities that Endbringers have destroyed, leaving the majority of your files sadly too destroyed to decipher. It all seems very convenient, especially if you wanted to claim that a company hadn't been originally made as a backup money fund around twenty years ago"

Danny narrowed his eyes.

"What exactly is your intention for this meeting Mister Mayor?"

"It is purely a social call, my friend." Christner gave a teethy grin. "I really wanted to see who had defeated the best agents my previous employer had to offer, not to mention whether the Techno Commander was as personable as his photo on the company website suggested."

Danny didn't react at the mention of his previous alias as a public Evil Genius. It was obvious that the Mayor knew exactly who he was. However, Danny now knew who the Mayor was as well.

"For you to be in that chair, I guess P.A.T.R.I.O.T must have had some tremendous layoffs when I retired?" Danny challenged with a smile.

"It was decommissioned by the White House unfortunately," Christner's smile didn't shift at all. "Supposedly replaced by the up and coming PRT at the time. It is such a shame that the agencies assets were also decommissioned instead of being reallocated considering the amount of contacts we had managed to get in the criminal underground of the country."

"So this is your retirement then?" Danny asked. "It seems a bit stressful to go from an Agent to the Mayor of a town like Brockton Bay."

"Only as stressful as becoming the head of a Dockworker's Union from an Evil Genius." Christner replied. "I didn't really want to speak about the past though. I really wanted to discuss the future. More specifically, Your immediate future of course."

"I guess you want me to not do-"

"No. Go ahead. In fact, I highly encourage to continue."

Danny felt his mouth go wide in surprise.

"What?"

"As an old, burned spy, I don't really care what you do on the grand scale of things." Christner waved it off. "I also have a great need of making the PRT look like an idiot so I do encourage you to do just that. I just brought you here to threaten you into not making the city worse. I have re-election soon and I can't have a random genius breaking my city just before that."

Danny re-centered himself, trying to control his utter surprise. Christner was a former Agent of Justice and letting him realise just how surprised he was would be disastrous.

"So I guess you would threaten to expose me, or the life of my daughter in order to maintain your city?" Danny felt himself grow angry at the thought.

"No. God no!" Christner shook his head. "Threatening a loved one's life just causes an inevitable action movie plot where the guy gets his revenge and then no one lives happily."

"No." Christner continued. "If you break my city, I am impounding your car."

"Oh. Okay."

"So are you actually doing anything disruptive in my city this week?"

"No, that would be in Boston. It took a lot of planning and paperwork to move the trial up."

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"You know, when Danny told me to get a canary, I really thought he meant a bird." Lacey spoke to her husband as they entered a very specific courthouse in Boston.

"Don't lie." Kurt laughed. "You knew what he meant, you just really wanted to get canary ever since you saw the bird Alan's oldest daughter had."

"That's not true." Lacey pouted. "Archimedes was just a very beautiful bird and I couldn't just let him sit in that terrible petshop cage for another minute."

"Attention, everyone." An announcement echoed through the courthouse's entrance hall. "The trial for Paige Macabee will begin in thirty minutes."

"Oh, you should get ready, love." Kurt spoke eagerly to Lacey as they dodged the idling photographers. "You don't want to be late for our big debut do you?"

"No, I wouldn't." Lacey agreed with a smile.


	11. Plotting 2,4,9

**I realised that I forgot a little piece of Dialogue between the Mayor and Danny, so here it is.**

  
The Mayor glared at Danny through his lidded eyes.

"Somehow, I don't believe you."

"Well, I'm not lying." Danny gave a small shrug at him. "I'm really not planning anything big this working week."

The Mayor stared at Danny and after a while he nodded. apparently satisfied.

"Okay then. Just keep what I said in mind. Your pickup's wellbeing hangs in the balance." Christner reminded. "That was all I wanted to say so you can go now if you want."

"Before, I go. How did you know?" Danny asked.

"Excuse me?"

"All those points you mentioned, the forged documents and conviniently missing files, is just standard procedure for proxy companies. How did you know I was the Techno Commander?"

"Despite the fact that you just confirmed it now?" Christner smiled at Danny's glare. "No, don't worry. I actually figured it out through a very complex system of analys-"

"It was the name wasn't it?"

"In... simplicity, yes." Christner nodded. "While almost everyone is going to look at that ingenoious name and immediately write it off as far too easy and likely unrelated to any Villain activity, attributing the name to some shady CEO or Marketing intern, some of us aren't fooled by even the most effective disguises. Not to mention that you, the Techno Commander, is the only Evil Genius that was left unaccounted for so it was easy to guess your other identity when I confirmed that you were an Evil Genius."

"You said us. Who else found out?"

"A local hero actually." Christer's grin widened in amusement. "He has sent at least a hundred letters to City Hall asking, then demanding and finally begging us to investigate you for being a possible front for a Covert Evil Genius operation because his own superiors thought his ramblings were baseless. Stupid PRT agents. He even had complex flowchart diagrams and everything."

"And you aren't?"

"No, Danny. I'm not going to investigate you. Hopefully, If I leave you alone long enough, the agencies might come back and I'd finally have a good place to put my Niece."

Danny frowned.

"I don't think a spy agency is a good place to raise a kid."

"Oh you haven't met Dinah. She really needs some proper direction in her life. And maybe some self defense courses."

Unwilling to be part of a discussion of whether a ten year old needs to be in boot camp, Danny simply nodded and got up to leave.

"Oh, I almost forgot to ask." Danny paused at the door as he remembered. "Who was the hero that found out."

"Oh. It was Armsmaster." Christner smiled.


End file.
